Munster’s own lionheart

PAUL O’Connell doesn’t ask for miracles from those around him. Being the pragmatist he is, the Munster second row accepts that everybody has been endowed with different gifts.

However, there is one thing he does demand from his teammates - total honesty and commitment.

He readily admits he wouldn’t still be playing the game in this country if that wasn’t the case for both Munster and Ireland. However, he recognises the level of support he craves is there in spades and that’s one of many good reasons why he will play his heart out in the red jersey in tomorrow’s Heineken Cup semi-final against Leinster at Lansdowne Road. To do anything else would be against his nature and totally unforgivable.

“That’s always the way it’s been with Munster teams, even back in the days when they only came together for a few games a season,” he notes. “We have to carry that on. It’s a massive part of our psyche and something that motivates us, the fact that we’re playing for our families and friends, and it drives us on. Going back to the Sale game, they were always going to come back at us after the first half we put in. The result was a product of a lot of patience, good defence, belief that it would come eventually, and it did, two minutes into injury time. It’s part of the team spirit and the work ethic we have. That’s the biggest pleasure I get from playing with Munster. Everyone tries to get the best out of themselves every time and that’s a great thing.”

He makes the point that “you don’t get fit in a week” and so appreciates coach Declan Kidney’s decision to give them a relatively easy time of it on the training ground over the past few days. He lauds what has been done over the last six months or so and uses it as motivation when he’s on the pitch. You might have imagined that fitness would be a given at this level but O’Connell believes it was a factor not alone in Munster’s quarter-final win over Perpignan but also in Leinster’s shock victory in Toulouse.

O’Connell is the proud possessor of a decent mop of red hair which has sometimes been associated with hot headedness. He had his moments in the past but nowadays is hard and fair.

“It’s a factor in most Irish sides now that discipline is very good,” he maintains. “Sometimes the French sides let themselves down a bit and if Perpignan didn’t have a few guys in the bin and conceded penalties, the game could have been a different story. I think our discipline shows and it’s the same throughout all the provinces. Our discipline has improved dramatically with professionalism. That Perpignan pack was probably the toughest we met all year but we should be better now after three weeks of playing and training together.

“Sunday is the biggest game of the season as was last year’s quarter-final or the semi-final the year before. Back in 2002, when we beat Stade Francais in Paris, and I had a remarkable baptism to Heineken Cup rugby, they were kind of armchair days. You’re just into the team, you’re not a senior player so there isn’t a lot of responsibility and you just do your own job. But with seniority, there’s more to do and the pressure is on you a little more. It’s like your first cap, you go in and do what you can with your head down and keep your trap shut, but it’s a bit different now. Of course, I remember that game in Paris quite vividly. It was a great day, a great win. We conceded a try early in the second half and had to defend for the rest of the match playing into a massive gale and we prevailed.”

That was then, this is now. Four years ago, O’Connell was as near to being callow as it is possible for a man of his physical and mental strength to be. He was emerging from the enormous shadows cast by legendary Munster figures like Mick Galwey and John Langford. Everyone knew from his school days at Ard Scoil Ris and his two years in the Irish schoolboys team about his vast potential. Realising it, however, was another matter but as it transpired, it was never an issue.

O’Connell has now accumulated 33 Irish caps (it would be even more had injury not intervened on a few occasions) and played in all four Lions Tests in New Zealand last summer. He makes his 27th Heineken Cup appearance for Munster tomorrow and his role will be a far cry from 2002 for he is now very much a senior member of the side and a key figure where Munster’s plans to outplay the Leinster pack are concerned.

“Of course I feel there is a greater weight of responsibility on me this time,” he accepts. “As you grow older, you get more nervous because you have a certain job to do. You become more confident and reach a stage where you realise you can talk to the guys around you to the best of your ability and give yourselves a great chance of winning every game.”

O’Connell laughed at the idea of there being any contact between Leinster players and himself through text messages and the like during the past week. This, quite clearly, is too serious for joking. The time, instead, is concentrated on getting everything right for this massive confrontation and working out where two teams that know each other so intimately might be able to gain a crucial edge. The lineout is one such area, with the likes of O’Connell and Malcolm O’Kelly up to speed on the Irish lineout calls and so desperately trying to find new ways of deceiving the opposition.

Paul admits they’ll be so wary of each other “that we’ll have changed a lot of things when it comes to the game”.

“We’ve played against each other and the other provinces loads of time and you think you know a team inside out but it never works out that way.

“We struggled to get much of their ball over Christmas and they struggled to get much of ours. Last week’s game against Edinburgh was good for morale, but we’ve good self belief anyway. It was very disappointing for a Munster team to lose three games in a row before that. It doesn’t happen that often. But you have to believe in yourself, in the work you’ve put in and it can happen like it did (against Edinburgh) when we scored six tries.”

Mention of the name of Freddie Pucciarello, Marcus Horan’s replacement tomorrow, brings a smile to the face of every member of the Munster panel. The Argentinian-born Italian international is hugely popular and proved last week that he’s also no pushover on the pitch.

“Freddie is a friendly fellow, outgoing, great scrummager, good worker around the field, it’s great to have a guy like Freddie coming in,” says Paul. Requests for a few stories about “Pucci” come to nothing. What goes on tour stays on tour. Same applies to predicting the outcome tomorrow.