Gerry Thornley on why no team in Europe better encapsulates what the European Cup is all about than the mighty men in red
It's only when you go through them all, the extraordinary highs and lows, the innumerable epics, last-ditch heroics, that you realise Munster's Heineken European Cup odyssey is unlike anyone else's. They may never have won it, and of course therein lies the rub, but no team - repeat no team - in Europe, better encapsulates the essence of what this tournament is about.
So many memorable days, so many awesome wins, ones to tell the grandchildren about. No venue in Europe has generated such mystique as Thomond Park. Devoid of fake razzmatazz, the ground looks, sounds and feels like a step back in time. It's the ultimate European Cup bear pit.
Rarely has there been such a sense of foreboding around Thomond Park in the build-up to a major European Cup game as coming up to the one against Gloucester in 2003. After the mauling in Perpignan the week before, even their own supporters seemed to believe it was the end of the road.
Munster had been routed by Gloucester in Kingsholm earlier as well. In the Limerick rematch, they needed to win by a minimum of four tries and 27 points to qualify for the knock-out stages, although not everyone had set it out so clearly (even in the match programme), which created confusion among team and supporters alike. Most prematch thoughts had centred on Munster's ability merely to sustain their proud, unbeaten record at the venue.
Yet they did it, by the requisite margin, with Ronan O'Gara's conversion the last kick of the match. Legend had it Gloucester left their gameplan in the back of a taxi. So good, The Miracle Match was put to video.
Even in opting for the accompanying eight high points, we've been obliged to leave out the likes of the three-try salvo in the opening 25 minutes when outflanking the four-up defence of Stade Français in the quarter-finals two years ago en route to a 37-32 win settled by O'Gara's typically nerveless kicking in the Thomond cauldron.
The Thomond factor perhaps dates back to Munster's 49-22 win over then reigning English champions Wasps in October 1996, giving team and crowd alike their first taste of slaying English opposition. And how they liked it. The legend was born. Two years later Munster were already out of contention and Harlequins, with Keith Wood making a much-trumpeted return, needed a win to secure a home quarter-final. But it was the pride engendered on days like this, in front of a Wood-inspired full house, that helped create Thomond's mystique. Quins were repelled by an almost primitive force of nature.
As big a landmark win was the first by an Irish team on French soil, in December 1999, against Colomiers, the previous season's finalists. Wood was at his vintage best, as were Mikey Mullins and David Wallace, in a dominant four-tries-to-two win that served notice of their intent that season.
In the way they keep bouncing back, in the way they keep scaling those heights again and again, there have been innumerable key figures along the way. He would hate to be described as one of the main players in the story, not least because he sees his role as merely facilitating the players, yet as he's reminded us this season, Declan Kidney clearly understands the Munster zeitgeist and knows how to press the right buttons.
Famously, prior to meeting Saracens at Vicarage Road, Kidney began that week's preparation at a team meeting by wearing a fez (the preferred headgear of Sarries fans) and steering a remote-control tee to his bemused players, so as to underline the potential distractions.
Alan Gaffney played his part too, in broadening the scope of the team and the daring acquisition of Christian Cullen, who has just been unlucky with injury from the moment he signed up. It would be remiss not to recall the work of Niall O'Donovan as Kidney's assistant-cum-forwards-coach, while John Langford, Brian Hickey and Jim Williams deserve credit for their input into consistently the best attacking lineout maul in the cup over the last decade.
Mick Galwey was obviously one of the key totems, the avuncular Kerryman off the pitch apparently utterly at odds with what one team-mate described as "the utter ferocity" he brought to the training ground and the pitch, where he apparently invariably said the right things or called for the right tactical shift.
Anthony Foley has become as much of a figurehead-cum-umbilical-link with the supporters. Even Galwey could learn a trick or two from Foley's ability to maximise perceived slights as a source of motivation, no matter how faint or unintentional. Witness Jeremy Guscott emailing Gloucester fans forecasting the Cherry and Whites would stuff Munster up front on BBC's Grandstand the week before. Cue Foley reminding the team of their rich heritage, and how Gloucester players had stated they were looking forward to coming to Thomond Park and taking Munster's record away.
It's extraordinary how many times visiting teams to Limerick simply imploded. They'd be far better off killing Munster with kindness beforehand.
And on the night they beat Leinster, Foley had texted the Shannonesque motto "No one beats Munster twice" to his team-mates in reference to Biarritz's quarter-final win over them last season in San Sebastien.
There's been plenty of that kind of heartache along the way too. The defeat to Northampton in the final of 2000 still rankles like no other, if only because Galwey, Wood, and Peter Clohessy should have ridden off into the sunset with valedictory winners' medals.
The thunder and downpours of that day in south west London were almost chillingly grim, all the more so after the high temperatures of Bordeaux when Munster had famously overcome Stade Toulousain with a high-tempo, recycling game and a Herculean but supremely composed defensive effort. Destiny didn't call them that day. The sense of grievance has perhaps helped feed the Munster-against-the-world mentality, or at least assist them in regrouping each year, rolling their sleeves up and resuming this search for their holy grail with the same unshakeable enthusiasm.
The Red Army has grown with each epic victory and heartrending defeat, for if the truth be told the cup has been as good for Munster as Munster have been for the cup. For sure there was a glorious tradition, founded on so many near misses and the celebrated wins over the All Blacks in 1978 and the reigning Australian world champions of 1992 (as well as the first win by an Irish province over a touring international side when beating a non-vintage Wallabies in 1967).
But the cup has added altogether more lustre, and without it there wouldn't even have been a Red Army. And as one of their ever-expanding number put it to me once, "It's not just that we want to be there when they finally win this thing, we'd hate to think we weren't there when they finally win this thing."
Besides, the trips aren't all about the suffering, even in defeat. They do like a moan at times, and are probably entitled to feel they have been fleeced by travel agents, hotels, airlines, the ERC, cheating opponents, bad officials, and anyone else they can think of over the years. Constant threads remain, most noticeably Foley, present in all bar one of their 77 cup matches over the last 11 years, while other stalwarts have been there since 2000 or before, such as John Hayes, Wallace, Peter Stringer, O'Gara, John Kelly and Anthony Horgan. The baton has been passed on, from the likes of Gaillimh and Claw, to Marcus Horan and, most obviously, Paul O'Connell.
Though injured until Christmas, and assuredly benefiting from the break, O'Connell has been immense this season. Who will forget his seismic frogmarching of Sebastien Chabal at Thomond Park when Sale were memorably put to the sword, or his tour de force from the kick-off to the last minute against Leinster?
With so many players in their prime, mid-to-late 20s, with 50-plus cup games and a multitude of Test caps as well, collectively, Munster have never seem better primed. A few nagging doubts remain. Can Munster scale the emotional high of the All-Irish "final" against Leinster again? If only Barry Murphy were fit, and that curse on the 13 jersey won't go away, while there remain genuine doubts over Jerry Flannery and Kelly particularly.
And we can ignore criticisms of Biarritz's playing style. Indeed, that only constitutes a worry, for maybe they're saving their best for last. They have more warriors and power up front than Leinster, and more pace out wide than Munster. Nor will they encounter the downpour that cramped their approach against Bath in the semis given the option of closing the Millennium Stadium roof, although word has it it will remain open, as even God wants to see O'Connell playing.
But as O'Connell said in the immediate aftermath of the win over Leinster, destiny does not call them. The past six or seven years counts for nothing come kick-off next week. And yet, maybe it does. They are representing a provincial nation, so to speak, and so many who have gone before them. It's not just Gaillimh and Claw. The list of those who have made integral contributions to the story is immense. There have been a few duds bought in from abroad, but the likes of Federico Pucciariello and Shaun Payne have followed in the footsteps of Langford and Williams. No less than Gaffney, they tend to become emotionally very tied to the Munster cause.
If (we daren't say when) Munster finally reach their holy grail, there won't be a dry eye in the place, and truly you sense it will be for the whole Munster family. It will be for all of them. And like them, the rest of us will be able to sleep a little easier as well.
THE ECSTASY
January 2003
Munster 33 Gloucester 6 (concluding pool match)
Requiring victory by a surely impossible minimum of 27 points and four tries, John Kelly scored his second and Munster's fourth in injury-time from a clever rolling maul in midfield, O'Gara's tricky conversion sealing perhaps the most improbable and far-fetched victory in the tournament's history. O'Gara admitted afterwards he didn't realise it all hinged on the conversion. Even when they get it wrong, the Drama Kings get it right.
April 2000
Toulouse 25 Munster 31 (semi-final)
Frankie Sheahan made light of Keith Wood's departure at half-time, and David Wallace had to play like a man possessed when they were reduced to 14 men as a crack Toulouse outfit were kept tryless deep into injury-time. The Bull's, eh, short-range try and Jason Holland's late intercept were sandwiched by perhaps their greatest cup try, 90 seconds of highly skilled, high-tempo recycling culminating in O'Gara tumbling joyously over the line.
April 2006
Munster 30 Leinster 6 (semi-final)
Not an epic victory, perhaps, but an epic occasion after three weeks of mountingly intense build-up, and how Munster rose to the challenge. Led by the legend Paul O'Connell (he doesn't sleep at night . . . he waits) a near flawlessly intense performance, especially up front, late tries by O'Gara and Trevor Halstead sealed as famous a win as they've had.
April 2003
Leicester 7 Munster 20 (quarter-final)
Not quite full vengeance for the infamous Backhander in the previous season's final, but sweet nonetheless. The Tigers, who had never lost in their own lair, were seeking a third successive European Cup, and had threatened not to give Munster their full ticket allocation. Peter Stringer's gleeful late touchdown and O'Gara kicking the final penalty dead into the massed ranks of red remain among the most abiding memories of the Munster odyssey.
January 2006
Munster 31 Sale Sharks 9 (pool stages)
Munster's speciality, a bonus point win against high-flying, every-so-slightly cocky English table toppers. Munster had come vibrantly to life with a seven-try, 46-9 demolition of Castres away the week before, but still required a bonus point win to procure a home quarter-final. After three first-half tries their target became a game within a game, David Wallace's 80th-minute try proving priceless, with a little help from Leinster in Bath the next day.
November 1999
Saracens 34 Munster 35 (pool stages)
Munster, with no pedigree away from home save for a win in Padova over the previous four years, weren't fazed by the Vicarage Road fanfare and Francois Pienaar's high-flying Saracens. A daring victory was sealed with a last-ditch, well-taken try by Jeremy Staunton, then a converted fullback, off a brilliant left-to-right skip pass by Mikey Mullins and another nerveless late conversion by O'Gara.
January 1999
Munster 31 Saracens 30 (pool stages)
A vengeful Sarries led 30-24 entering the game's death-throes. The prodigal Wood, at his indefatigable best, burrowed over in the 80th minute, and a cool-as-ice conversion by O'Gara sealed a thrilling win. In actual fact, Kidney and the Brains Trust had concluded that the conversion wasn't necessary for Munster to finish above Saracens on the head-to-head records. Even when they're allowed get it wrong, they still get it right.
January 2002
Stade Français 14 Munster 16 (quarter-finals)
An untypical late slip-up defeat in Castres the week before had consigned Munster to Paris for a rematch with the team who had controversially beaten them in the semi-finals 12 months previously. The win was honed on a rock-hard defensive effort into the wind after an opportunist first-half try by Anthony Horgan when hitting the line in midfield. Nobody beats Munster twice!
THE AGONY
May 2000 (final)
Northampton 9 Munster 8
Rarely has a defeat stuck in the craw like this one. After their stunning win in the Bordeaux heat, a thunderously wet end-of-May day visited Twickenham to help Pat Lam and the gnarled Northampton pack to a one-point win. For once, there were no late dramatics as O'Gara's 45-metre penalty into the breeze was blown fractionally off course. The one that got away.
May 2002 (final).
Leicester 15 Munster 9
Famous for the late intervention of the Hand of Back, it was interpreted as downright cheating or an example of Leicester's supreme winning mentality as they retained the cup. In the furore, Neil Back's slyness merely denied Munster a late move off a scrum, having rarely looked like scoring, not matching the inventiveness of Geordan Murphy and Austin Healey until the 68th-minute arrival of Mullins and Staunton.
April 2001 (semi-finals)
Stade Francais 16 Munster 15
Injuries to Alan Quinlan and Kelly didn't help and Munster were again tryless. But the picture still adorns one of the walls in the Sinbin and many places elsewhere; John O'Neill's clearly legitimate touchdown under the unintruded view of touchjudge Steve Lander. Coupled with nightmarish travel itineraries to and from Lille, Munster will never forget or forgive.
April 2004 (semi-finals)
Wasps 37 Munster 32
Save for the recent all-Irish semi-final, Lansdowne Road hasn't known an atmosphere like it, Will Green recently likening it to a giant ladybird such were the black wasps dots amongst the sea of red. Great, fluctuating game too. Munster surviving the loss of O'Gara to take a stunning lead before Wasps, then in their pomp, regrouped to win deservedly, albeit with a dubious Trevor Leota try.
April 2003 (semi-finals)
Toulouse 13 Munster 12
The skin still tickles at the memory of Le Stadium rocking to the massed drum-beating, rhythmic banks of Stade Toulousain and Munster fans. After their vintage win in Welford Road a fortnight before, Munster again lacked a cutting edge. Toulouse's superior bench swung it, notably when Frederic Michalak switched to outhalf after the introduction of Jean-Baptiste Elissalde.
