You don’t have to lose one first. But maybe it helps.
His first final loss was ten years ago. With Biarritz against Munster. I told him Saturday night I now have three European final losses like him. Yes, he said, but you have 2006.
The losses aren’t easier second or third time around. But the first one leaves you reeling. You realise it’s a long way back up the hill next season. You don’t just lose a final. You lose all the ground, all the elevations you made during the campaign. That’s what I felt like Monday. Three days later, I’ve emerged from the hole.
I don’t buy fortune-cookie psychology, so someone will have to convince me real hard you have to lose a final before you know how to win one. Racing didn’t win last Saturday because we didn’t play particularly well. Nor did Saracens, by the way. They were more accurate than us, even though on 75 minutes, it was a one score game, 15-9. We showed up okay but I wonder were we happy to be in the final - and maybe that will only change with experience.
We didn’t look like we went out to win the final - we looked like we went out to see what might happen. That’s different.
Coming out of the tunnel in the Millennium Stadium in 2006, the words of Paul O’Connell were apt as always: We just have to play. Munster had accumulated six years of hurt by that stage. You couldn’t just show up and believe that the law of averages would take care of us. We had a game to impose and we had to impose it. We got off to an horrendous start, but we were able to take the blow and get back into the game.
The fear of the occasion is different to the fear of losing. Our fear of losing ten years ago was off the scale. We had enough at that stage. Mentally you make a shift in your head that this has to be done. We gave it a good rattle against Leicester in 2002, but they were probably still a better team than us at that stage in the finer points. Four years later, we knew we’d been here too many times, we had to take the next step. Otherwise the old stuff is going to be thrown at you. It’s very easy to look sage now in hindsight, but trust me there was massive, massive pressure that day on Munster. We could hear the whispers. Chokers. Good up to a point, but couldn’t seal the deal.
Getting straight back onto the horse this week is a first for me. Usually a Heineken Cup final was the full stop on the season and the next week was a blowout either way. Memorable or horrendous.
We will agonise over Dan Carter’s injury and losing Max Machenaud after 15 minutes, or the puzzling penalty decisions again by the most famous referee in the world, Nigel Owens. Ah, let’s not go there.
In my head, I was fearful of Saracens all along because I could see them developing minute by minute this season. When you analyse them, you quickly see they do what they do really well. Who does that remind you of? Owen Farrell executed really well, they played pressure rugby and found a solution to win in Lyon. They broke us mentally and physically.
Wigglesworth had an exceptional game at 9, and their pack has an incredible work-rate.
There is character in this Racing squad, I am sure of that, as much from No’s 16-40 as there is in the first XV. We need heroes with sleeves rolled up to step on the gas now over the next five weeks, beginning with Pau this weekend.
Munster had them. It was always a competitive dressing room. Certain names got more focus, but in that team, there was a lot of others with significant roles.
Around that time Barry Murphy, Jerry Flannery and Ian Dowling breezed into the dressing room, bringing fresh air with them. The new batch. Young, hungry. We knew Jerry Flannery had something about him, because he was always around the place. He was training on the second pitch in Cork Con when I’d be kicking in the wind and rain, studiously ignoring each other. He was throwing the ball against the post (he was in UCC at the time), but you didn’t pay any attention at that stage.
Ian Dowling and Barry had talent, and they optimised every bit they had. Dowling would prove extremely difficult to replace. He was a players’ player, the supporters loved him, he had that special ability to beat the first man every time and he laid the foundation for those after him when it came to going after high balls.
Ten years on, you think of the mix and don’t wonder so much how was breasted the tape.
Foley, Wallace, Paulie. Shaun Payne at full-back, his compatriot Trevor Halstead at centre. Payne brought massive security to us defensively; Every garryowen was caught, every last ditch tackle made. Halstead was way ahead of his time, a fitness fanatic with a sculpted body, he took massive pride in his appearance and his work off the pitch. An impressive unit.
Patrice Boutevin was right. We will always have May 20, 2006. That snapshot of the scene back in Limerick during the game on the big screen. The memory still shocks me. Even thinking about it now again. That was the moment you just couldn’t come home if you didn’t have the medal.
The top of the tree.
Now what’s next?
