Monday, December 13, 2010
ON ONE hand, writing about Munster playing at home in the Heineken Cup is the simplest assignment in the world.
If you’re stuck – say, jammed a mile outside Charleville with 10 minutes to kick-off – then you could just throw a handful of cliches up into the air and watch them arrange themselves on the page like iron filings tumbling around a magnet.
Fronting up. Red Army. Sixteenth man. The fortress.
A five-year-old could probably assemble it himself in five minutes with no set of instructions or unhelpful diagrams, which is more than everyone will be able to say in less than a fortnight.
On the other hand, that’s the very thing that makes it a hardship posting, as they say in the civil service, because going to Thomond Park can have an odd effect on a writer’s mind.
He or she can either become a part of the religion or question the faith. Seen it happen. Lads turning into card-carrying members or wanting to burn the flag. Fundamentalist or atheism.
Ian Paisley or Richard Dawkins. It’s not much of a choice.
Yesterday was a case in point, when Ospreys visited Limerick, and the temptation to reach for a handy cliche was at times almost a physical itch.
Several stock characters were in evidence, such as our favourite: the sceptic who must endure trials to be converted to the correct faith.
This may be the first time Ospreys’ scrum-half Mike Phillips is actively compared to St Paul, but the narrative is well established. A person of note shows a lack of reverence for the faith and must be put through severe ordeals in order to be shown the right path.
Yes, for these purposes the road to Damascus runs parallel with the new Shannon tunnel.
Donncha O’Callaghan’s close questioning of the number nine on 24 minutes, for instance, was the expected reaction to Phillips’ heresy earlier in the week, some harmless-enough stating of the obvious about some Munster players entering the twilight of their careers.
Phillips didn’t quite abandon his false gods, however, but persisted in playing as though he felt his team could win; the real villain of the piece for the home support yesterday was ref Christophe Berdos, for whom laissez-faire seems less a 19th-century political doctrine as a rule to live by.
Mixing religious metaphors, the Ospreys didn’t really embrace their assigned role as sacrificial lambs. Or Christians in the Coliseum, come to that.
Tommy Bowe’s intercept try on the turnover was a fair reflection of their competitiveness, as was the force of New Zealander Jerry Collins, the visiting blind-side forward, who played another role to perfection — the enigmatic traveller whose thoughts cannot be guessed.
Your columnist has had a soft spot for Collins ever since, due to a dizzying combination of factors, we ended up sharing a Snickers bar in the airport in Derry.
‘Sharing’ might not be the most accurate description, mind. Collins pressed the half-eaten bar into my hand when a member of the All Blacks management team hove into view, more or less sniffing the air for rogue carbs – and given the endorsement as refuelling material by the great man, suffice to say that bar never made it onto ebay.
LESS confectionery, more rugby.
To reinforce the need to be attentive, your columnist had to make a conscious effort to stow away the sacramental overtones when Munster brought on their number 19 on 58 minutes.
David Wallace had just burrowed over for a try and Ronan O’Gara had converted to put Munster ahead when Paul O’Connell came into the game. Cue another try minutes later: daylight.
Andrew Bishop’s knock-on soon afterwards had the quality of a towel coming through the ropes and there was a palpable air among spectators of settling down to evaluate O’Connell’s match fitness at that stage and to luxuriate in a slow suffocation of the visitors — until the big man clobbered opponent Jonathan Thomas off the ball and got a red card.
Munster won’t be happy with the referee for that decision: he hadn’t exactly worn out the pea in his whistle at that point, and the home side could point to what looked like an attempted foot-trip on Doug Howlett early on to reinforce their general dissatisfaction, but that doesn’t mean O’Connell was wronged specifically. It was a loose swing that connected all too sweetly with his opponent.
The big man’s departure restored consistency to the narrative, though: injustice and a narrow lead. Baying punters and a tight win.
Afterwards Ospreys forwards coach Jonathan Humphries leavened his compliments about O’Connell as a player with a blandly-stated, straight-faced comparison with Gavin Henson’s lengthy suspension for something similar.
We enjoyed that in spite of ourselves: a side of cliched praise marbled with a vein of venom.
Even in Thomond Park lingo there’s always room for innovation.
* contact: michael.moynihan@examiner.ie Twitter: MikeMoynihanEx
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