Thanks for the memories, mighty men of Munster
They were of the plain people of Ireland and for those plain people and they gave us the joy and pride of two Heineken Cups and much more than that. They have been mighty men.
The end of their magnetic Heineken Cup involvement had to come sometime.. Maybe, in hindsight, it is best that they were gutted and destroyed by a far better side on the day. Maybe it was cruelly best that the unerring boot of Jonny Wilkinson became the sharpest stiletto into their guts at the end of the execution. The nature of the loss showed, somehow, that this was not the real Munster afield. If they had been beaten by a single point it would probably have been harder all round. Know what I mean? They left their collective form and controlled fury behind them when they flew out for that game. They were shadows of what they were and are at their magnificent best. Toulon did not beat the Munster we know, they beat their listless and dispirited ghosts.
Life goes on. They have to fill those deflated and defeated red jerseys again this weekend in the dead rubber game with London Irish. They will rise again for sure. But this is as good a time as any to recognise the real Munster achievements, apart from the silverware, over the last decade and more.
They were not just winners on the international rugby scene, you see, they were also the team from the provinces that infinitely popularised the game of rugby for the masses. Their style of play, and their spirited successes, attracted to them hundreds of thousands of supporters who, previously, were largely GAA followers whose only interest in rugby union, fundamentally, was in the Six Nations season every spring.
But these Munster warriors showed us that rugby at its best can be a most thrilling and attractive code and intensely compulsive viewing when things get tight, when the big hits go in, when the tough front men go at it eyeball to eyeball, muscle to muscle, bone to bone. They turned what was once called a “foreign game” into a Munster mutation which we grew to love and admire.
They have been mighty men indeed.
There has been something else about them down the years. They just had to be a powerfully united team in every sense of the word to achieve what they achieved. In the early years for certain they did not have a charismatic gamebreaker such as Brian O’Driscoll of Leinster to achieve, with just a jink and a swerve, what a pack has to suffer and grunt for. They did have the gifted boot of O’Gara since it seems forever but, generally, they scored team tries. They had to graft hard for everything they got and they were the best grafters around. They turned it into an art form after a few seasons and added sharper cutting edges to their attack but, fundamentally, it was Munster as a team that earned their perennial greatness.
Somehow that very lack of “stars”, certainly in the beginning, was one of the elements which attracted so many non-rughy supporters to them from the beginning of their recent run of success. They grafted in exactly the same way as our local GAA clubs often had to graft against oppositions of superior class and skills.
Their deeds in Thomond Park and beyond have now become a vital part of the sporting folklore and all of us are the richer for that. The core of the team has aged of course. That is part of it all. It is a testament to their durability in the toughest ball code of all that so many of them are still around.
The new blood is transfusing itself into the system but Stringer is still hand-tripping men twice his size, The Bull is still packing down, talismanic captain O’Connell, despite his bad injury sequence, is still there in the thick of it, O’Gara still drilling over the points and penalties, O’Callaghan soaring high, Leamy burrowing in beneath, Wallace always awaiting his half chance, even in Toulon.
It may well be a while before Thomond becomes quite the impregnable fortress it has been in the past but the day will come for sure. Meanwhile it is fitting to say a warm thanks to the mighty men of Munster.
Leinster and Ulster march on impressively to the knockout stages of the Heineken Cup so we have a continuing interest. It will not be quite the same though when Munster are not involved. Still they have a chance of European competition yet this season. They could qualify for the Amlin Challenge Cup and that would pit them again against some of Europe’s top sides. The weekend’s tilt against London Irish might well be just a dead rubber in one competition but it could be, with a win, a good preparation for the beginning of another.
Sporting life goes on. In the meantime, Munster, thanks for the memories.
* Contact: cormac66@hotmail.com
