Never underestimate Thomond factor, says Foley
Stung by media criticism of their performance in Perpignan, wounded at having been written off as a spent force in the Heineken Cup and outraged by reports that Gloucester were rubbing their hands with glee at the thought of turning up at Thomond Park and rolling over the home side, Munster players afforded themselves a wry smile as the magnitude of their achievements sank in.
And through the grins and the laughter emerged words that revealed the pride, hurt, desire and spirit which drove Munster on to turn in a near faultless performance and deliver the victory which will go down as one of the greatest in European Cup history.
“Everybody had us written off,” man of the match Anthony Foley said, “nobody gave us a chance of getting through, but that’s always the case with us isn’t it?
“I think we’ve lost three games (this season) and all three away from home and if you ask anybody, ‘How’s Munster season this season?’ they’ll tell you it’s not a great season and yet we’re in the quarter-final of the European Cup and with a Celtic League final to play.
“I suppose that’s down to the standards we’ve set over the last few years. They’re very high, which is good because every time we go out on the pitch we have to try and live up to them. At times that can get frustrating because anybody watching us against Perpignan last week could see things were not going our way and it wasn’t our fault and we kept battling right the way to the end. These are the things that happen to teams away from home and they’re hard to live with at times. But we felt it was a bit too early for people to actually bury us.”
And yet, being buried was probably the best thing that happened to Munster. That’s certainly the way hooker Frankie Sheahan thought, gathering up all the criticism to present a damning dossier on the eve of the match.
“I cut out a few newspaper articles during the week and produced them on Friday night,” Sheahan said.
“They were mostly from the Irish papers but I think Jeremy Guscott was quoted as saying the Gloucester pack would destroy the Munster pack. I don’t know if they exactly destroyed us today, do you?
“These are the little things we use to motivate ourselves. I don’t know if it’s an Irish thing or a
Munster thing but we work in funny ways. We get written off and it just seems to give us a kick up the ass.
“There are other reasons for it though. We lost in Perpignan last week and were a bit unlucky and I think Gloucester were always going to get the backlash from that. But for some reason, every year, the Munster crowd just love playing the English teams over here in Thomond Park and this year especially after we got trounced in Kingsholm. It was all built up for this game and even if there was nothing to play for it was always going to be a big game anyway.”
Never underestimate the Thomond factor, a source of relish to Sheahan, Foley and co. and none more so than on Saturday afternoon.
“We started from minute one and never took our foot off until the referee blew the final whistle,” Foley said. “You just can’t live with that sort of pressure and not concede.
“The scrum was awesome, Marcus and John; the lineouts, Frankie, Donncha and Micko; around the pitch Quinny and Jim; Strings and Rog controlled the game at half-back, nothing came through the two boys in the centre of pitch, our two wingers scored tries and Jeremy was as safe as houses at the back.
“It was a day when we said we’d have an honesty call and go out there from minute one and not finish. They’re not top of the English Premiership for nothing. We had to respect them and really go after them. They probably spoke a lot about what they were going to get over here and we didn’t want to disappoint them. We wanted to give them the full Thomond Park experience. They bought the tickets and they got the experience all right.”
Ronan O’Gara continued the theme: “It played into our hands the likes of some of the Gloucester fellas saying they were looking forward to coming. That peed a few of the seasoned pros off a little bit. The likes of Gaillimh and Axel have been unbeaten here and talk like that makes their blood boil a little bit. They’d heard the Gloucester pack were going to tear shreds off them and that only whetted their appetite. At the end of the day it was 15 fellas playing to their potential and that was what mattered.”
Foley, making a record 50th Heineken Cup appearance, continued his senior statesman role as he shepherded O’Gara to the players’ tunnel. “It was just unbelievable. We were saying afterwards that that was the best we’ve ever experienced here. The only thing that could possibly beat that would be victory at Lansdowne Road in the final.”
“We’re going to be away in the quarter-final and it’s going to be a tough game for us but that’s a long, long way away and God only knows what kind of a squad we’re going to have by then. At the moment we’re just smiling and looking forward to the Celtic League final.”
Sounds like that obituary will be on hold for quite some time yet.
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