SIMON LEWIS: Young stars making their own history

When Howard Wilkinson took charge of Leeds United, one of his first acts was to remove all the pictures of the successful Don Revie years that adorned the walls of Elland Road.

The canny Yorkshireman felt the images of Giles and Bremner, Lorimer and Charlton delivering success after success more than 10 years previously was suffocating the potential of the squad he had inherited, languishing as they were in the depths of the second tier of English football.

Munster’s glories are much less far removed, and the current squad of players have not fallen anywhere near as low as the hapless journeymen Wilkinson first managed, but there was a growing feeling among this younger generation of rugby men in red that the time had come to emerge from the shadows of yesterday and start making some history for themselves.