If the Munster final were the World Cup...

....THEN Sepp Blatter would be in Semple Stadium tomorrow, which would be bad for the association.

But Frank Murphy would be in the Allianz Arena, which would be good for FIFA.

It would mean John Motson could tell us the last time a left-handed Tipperary forward scored a point from the right-hand sideline with six minutes to go to half-time, which would be good.

But it would mean Ian Wright would also be talking about hurling, which would be very bad.

It would mean that you’d have German riot police at the railway station in Thurles, which would be bad. But it would mean you’d have men with MAOR on their fluorescent jackets telling Franz Beckenbauer where he could and couldn’t sit in Munich, which would be great.

It would mean that you’d have a ropy Bavarian folk group on a platform between the 65s, which would be puzzling; but it would mean the Sean Treacy Pipe Band opening the festivities in Gelsenkirchen with the Galtee Mountain Boy, which would be the finest, as they say in Tipp.

It would mean Jens Lehmann facing Eoin Kelly or Joe Deane from 21 yards, which would be good for Eoin Kelly and Joe Deane.

But it would mean David Beckham facing Donal Óg Cusack or Brendan Cummins from 21 yards, which would be extremely bad for David Beckham’s confidence.

It would mean Spaten and bratwurst in the Square, which mightn’t be bad; it would mean damp tomato sandwiches and cold tea from a flask at the Brandenburg Gate, which mightn’t be bad either.

It would mean Graham Poll going in to threaten Diarmuid O’Sullivan with a yellow card, which would be good to see; it would mean Dickie Murphy telling Ronaldinho to get on with it, which would be great to watch.

It would mean having a primary school game at half-time between the likes of Holland and Argentina, which would be great; but it would mean half-time in Thurles would be a little bereft, which would be bad.

It would mean Maradona twirling his colours over his head in the New Stand, which would be good.

But it would also mean Victoria Beckham, Colleen McLoughlin and the rest of the wives going into the Thurles Sarsfields clubhouse, which would not be good on any level.

It would mean the John 3:7 man trying to talk his way past stadium security at Dortmund, which would be bad, but it would also mean Pecker Dunne trying to interest the Serbia-Montenegro and Paraguay fans in his ballads, which would be fantastic.

It would mean Paul Robinson complaining about the flight of the new sliotar, which would be bad, but it would also mean John Gardiner and Paul Kelly pointing frees from their own half in Berlin, which would be business as usual.

It would mean Sven-Goran Eriksson and Big Phil Scolari giving a post-match press conference leaning over the barrier at the side of the pitch, which would be good, but it would also mean John Allen and Babs Keating facing the press in the FIFA-supplied, air-conditioned, sofa-bestrewn, quality-catered, beverages-gratis media area, which would be priceless for all concerned.

It would mean thousands of Polish, Dutch, Costa Rican, Brazilian, American, South Korean and Ivory Coast fans suddenly landing into the dog track in Thurles and asking where the big screen was, which would be bad; it would mean thousands of people in blue and gold and red and white in the middle of Berlin trying frantically to find RTÉ 2 on the vast screen in the fanzone in front of them, which wouldn’t good either.

It would mean that the secretary of FIFA would have to get the police out to his house to regulate the traffic coming up the drive for tickets, which would be good.

It would mean the secretary of every club in Tipperary and Cork giving the ticket headache onto a centralised processing centre in Zurich, which those secretaries would no doubt think a very good thing indeed.

It would mean having the World Cup every year, which would be a little demanding for the players; but it would mean that you’d only have the Munster hurling final every four years.

With that in mind, we’ll leave it as it is.