Back in the mid-1990s, when the All-Ireland League ruled the roost and the provinces were semi-comatose, an Irish player with a few caps already to his name departed from his Leinster club's Division One game prematurely. His absence was felt and his side lost. It was a "precautionary" departure he explained afterwards. "I've my cap to think about next week."

Back in 1995, prior to the decisive game on the run-in between the top two, a young Shannon number eight had been selected to make his Irish debut the week after the AIL summit meeting. It was explained to him by the Irish management, his club and virtually everyone else, that it was traditional for a prospective debutant to "rest" from his club game the preceding Saturday. It was the done thing.

Needless to say, Anthony Foley did nothing of the sort. Nor is it purely folklore that he played "outstandingly" when Shannon beat Blackrock. All the Shannon people say that almost matter-of-factly. It was merely the fact that he bucked tradition itself which explains why Munster clubs have had that little edge in the nine-year history of the AIL. "It showed his commitment to the club and gave us a belief that we could go out and beat Blackrock," explained Niall O'Donovan, then coach of the team. Sure enough, they did win a sodden game, courtesy of Billy O'Shea's memorable, much-disputed, good-old-fashioned footrush try and went on to win the first of four leagues in a row.

Foley ultimately didn't miss a match in Shannon's four-year reign of the AIL. Perhaps the Leinster player was right. It would be entirely understandable in the modern game, in this season of all seasons. Yet it's still probably less likely to happen with a Munster man.

It could well be that Munster's European Cup commitments this season will hinder their clubs more than ever before, leaving the door ajar for the rest. The difference is that the Munster clubs will still expect the kind of commitment for their AIL run-in that Foley showed in 1995. Perhaps too much can be read into the aforementioned comparison. But then again, perhaps it explains a multitude.

Leinster have had a more than equal share of the international caps of the 1990s, and Ulster have had their share too. That Blackrock team was special. It should have won at least one league. Likewise, St Mary's were good enough to have won at least one. Everyone knows it, even Munster rugby people.

Yet, apart from the famous, if unofficial, 1993 showdown in Lansdowne Road, when Young Munster beat St Mary's, the closest any Leinster team came was through Blackrock in 1995. Technically, the only other year a Leinster club was runner-up was in 1997, when Lansdowne still finished six points adrift of Shannon. St Mary's didn't even have that satisfaction in 1993, hence in seven of the AIL's nine years, Munster clubs have provided the runners-up.

It's not as if anyone else even comes second. Three seasons ago, Leinster clubs occupied the next three places after Shannon. Yet when the top four and semi-final format was introduced the following season, sure enough Munster clubs finished first, second and third. Again last year, they provided both finalists after occupying the top two places. Countless theories have been put forth to explain this. The most popular is that Munster clubs, and Limerick clubs especially, simply hail from a different, more working-class and parish-orientated community where, uniquely, rugby is the main expression of sporting achievement and rivalry.

It's a theory which Brent Pope, who bears the scars of his sending-off in the 1993 decider and who didn't have his first win over Young Munster until last season, rows in with. "Most of the Leinster players don't have that same desire. Munster is very much the home of Irish rugby and the most like New Zealand."

Each of the Limerick clubs hails from their own parish, and have their own circle of pubs. A win at the weekend makes the following week a whole lot easier, for all of their first-team squad members will be instantly recognisable in that circle of pubs. By comparison, a Blackrock player can walk down the old main street in the suburb or hop into the Wicked Wolf and he'll scarcely be noticed.

In short, in Limerick there's no hiding place, and as Pope adds: "The people there certainly aren't slow to let you know if you're not pulling your finger out. Most of their guys have come up through the club system and up here there isn't that same in-built club rivalry."

However, as O'Donovan points out, that "doesn't take into account Cork Constitution", and their brace of titles and ability to compete as equals with their Limerick rivals on a consistent basis.

Hence, for him, the internecine rivalry of the Munster Senior Cup - comparably far more intense than any of its provincial counterparts - is the secret to their AIL successes.

"Maybe it's the whole history of competition within Munster. The Munster Senior Cup was always very successful.

"Because there was no national competition, it was always that bit harder to win than the others. Then when the AIL came along, a huge effort went in from the clubs to get this one right and we used our history of rivalry against each other," says O'Donovan.

Indeed, it's a howl to recall how Wanderers and Ballymena, the then league and cup double holders in their respective provinces, were generally regarded (albeit outside of Munster) as the favourites for the AIL's inaugural 1990-91 season.

Munster have always carried a bit of a chip on their shoulder about the national selection process, and as Donal Lenihan has observed, so their players saw the AIL as a chance "to stick their hand up and say `pick me'." And when they aren't picked, it merely adds salt and vinegar to the chip.

As Pat Murray, full back-turned-coach on Shannon's historic four-in-a-row side, points out: "I suppose our main recognition is through the clubs, and if the club is successful then it keeps the club up there. Like everything else, it's the fight within the dog. And when you've won it once, you want to win it twice." Or four times.

Pat O'Keefe, team manager of Cork Constitution, puts it down to an inner belief. "No Dublin club can make themselves believe they can beat the four of us. Munster clubs have a greater belief and a greater attitude Glib and simplistic though it may sound, there's little doubt that because of their roots Munster players are intrinsically tougher, physically and mentally.

John `Packo' Fitzgerald, prop in the victorious Young Munster side of 1993, manager last season and coach this season says simply: "Munster players have a greater determination to go the distance. Leinster sides can often make a great start but they haven't the same grit and determination to go the distance. And if you had listened to all the hype about Ballymena two seasons ago then the rest may as well not have turned up."

Fitzgerald adds: "Garryowen, Shannon and ourselves have a built-in pride and rivalry. We're always competing against each other. When the other results are announced on the television at 5.00 p.m. on a Saturday in the club bar, there's a huge cheer if one of the others are beaten.

"In Leinster the clubs are more spaced out, whereas in Limerick there's a much less cosmopolitan, more closely-knit community. That's where the constant banter between Limerick clubs comes from. And we all hate losing."

Yet, axiomatically, if there was only one of them still standing when the AIL reaches its finale, or if it came to a choice between a Munster club and a Leinster club, then according to Fitzgerald they'd all get behind their local rivals. They still want Munster clubs to be top dogs nationally.

Yet, curiously, this has rarely manifested itself with "Team Munster" where perhaps the internal rivalries, and the Cork-Limerick bilocation, have worked against the provincial side. Thus, despite their clubs winning the AIL throughout its nine-year existence, it's absolutely astonishing to think that Munster only won their first back-to-back interprovincial titles this season and last. Credit to Declan Kidney and his management cohorts for finally getting the blend right.

It will be interesting to see if the belated harmonisation of Munster's disparate, parish-based, bilocated talent will in some way diminish their local club rivalry and their desire for the AIL. On a strictly tangible level, should Munster reach the quarter-finals of the European Cup in mid-April, that will come a week after a full round of AIL games, and will also mean a postponement of the proposed Friday night match between Lansdowne and Garryowen.

As things stand, the European Cup semi-finals come a week after the final round of regular first division games, and clash with the AIL semi-finals. While the AIL final is scheduled to take a place a week before the Euro decider.

Perhaps then, this may provide the best of the rest with their best chance yet. Then again, we wouldn't want to hold our breath waiting for it to happen. There will remain that elusive, almost intangible extra quality which sets the Munster clubs apart.

No-one can really get it, least of all outsiders. Even when successfully coaching Garryowen, Murray Kidd couldn't crack the Young Munster defence. They should patent it for the Irish team, he suggested.

So what was its secret?

"I'm f*****d if I know."