Emanuel ‘Manny’ Meafou, born in Auckland, raised in Sydney, refined in Europe’s premier rugby city, is due to make his belated bow for France against Ireland in Marseille on Friday week.

Peter O’Mahony and Courtney Lawes slugged it out on that fateful Friday night when Munster staged the most epic of all their epics in Limerick.

All over Europe, the defunct club's alumni were having an impact. 

Bayonne's made their debut in the top competition but decided to send an understrength side to Limerick.

The Champions’ Cup’s reappearance this weekend from six months of hibernation provides stark confirmation of how the elite European game below Test level has shrunk.

Neither Felix Jones nor Jean Kleyn were Munster born or bred but the Red Army will claim that the province made them what they are.

And so the tournament ended for the All Blacks as it had started, leaving them with nothing other than perhaps an appreciation of how Ireland felt a fortnight earlier.

Ox went to work on England’s substitute Ellis Genge with such a relish that, aided and abetted by Vincent Koch, the refitted front row won four scrum penalties in a row.

They have delivered a shift in attitude. Now they expect to keep winning.

Some of the game's big hitters sat out the weekend action.