Living the dream
Anthony Foley: We had a perfect start to the second half. Shaun Payne put up a garryowen and charged after it. Thion caught it but we piled into him and they ended up giving away a penalty.
Ronan O’Gara: That was the one time I thought about it — because I knew how significant it was. I lost concentration for about 10 seconds, so I had to just snap out of it and forget about the importance of the kick, forget about the scoreboard. I hit it well again and we were 10 points in front, 20-10.
Anthony Foley: Straight after that penalty, John Hayes grabbed hold of Traille and he was wide open for a hit. I was first in line so I had a crack at him and the boys came in behind me. He’s a big player for them and seeing him going backwards and turning over the ball was a boost for us. It’s important that when you can inflict damage, you do it. I’m sure if one of our players was in that position he’d get opened as well.
Then, for some reason, we started conceding ground. Our discipline slid a small bit and we gave away a penalty. We knew going into the game that Yachvili kicks them from everywhere so we paid for it.
Paul O’Connell: We’d brought in a new lineout formation — Hayes and Stringer lifting Donncha at the front. Hayes did all the lifting. When you go in with a formation that they’ve never seen before, it takes them two or three lineouts to get organised and that one worked well for us.
Donners took a lot of ball — he was playing really well. I didn’t feel the ankle at the time, but it probably did slow me down and affect my spring.
Donncha O’Callaghan: People said Paulie must have been carrying his ankle because more balls were thrown to me. But the reason that happened was because it was on — they were marking him more than me. They had so much respect for him that they probably had two guys on him.
Our main concern was winning our own ball. The backs like the ball at the tail — crisp and down to Strings — but sometimes Strings had to get the ball off a maul. So pure respect to Biarritz for that. Even when I managed to steal one from them, about 15 minutes into the second half, they tore into us and won the ball back. Mistakes were being made by both sides, but we were on the back foot then. We’d lost a bit of momentum.
Anthony Horgan: About 60 minutes into it, there was a break in play and all of a sudden we heard a big roar all around the ground. I looked around me and I thought, ‘Who’s coming on here?’ Then I saw the big screen — thousands of people massed together in O’Connell Street in Limerick, watching a big screen there. I swear to God it was a massive kick to see it. That helped us, no doubt. It really did make a difference.
Marcus Horan: Some of the lads were slow to comment on it after the game because they didn’t want to admit they weren’t concentrating on the match. But we’ve spoken about it since and it was something we will remember forever.
John Hayes: The boys were saying, ‘Let’s not be playing inside our own 22. Let’s get down their side of the field - they can’t kick from down there.’ I wasn’t actually saying it. I wouldn’t say a whole lot.
Peter Stringer: We were trying to get the balance right between not sitting back and being too ambitious.
Mick O’Driscoll: With 10 minutes to go, I was told I was going on for Axel. Biarritz had made five changes and at that stage we’d made one. Our pack were playing against four sets of fresh legs, they’d gone through a huge volume of work and I think it was just a case of freshening it up a bit. I was just delighted to get on the pitch.
Anthony Foley: I saw Micko coming over and he was going, ‘Number eight’ — so that was me. You’re always disappointed to be called ashore but obviously we’ve enough faith in Deccie to know that he’s making the decisions for the right reasons. I wouldn’t be arrogant enough to think that I can play 70 minutes of rugby at that level and still be better than an international player on the bench who’s fresh.
David Wallace: At 20-19 we were under serious pressure. We got into their half and then Johnson was pinged for coming in from the side. Straight away everyone on the pitch thought, ‘This is a big moment.’
Ronan O’Gara: It was obvious how important it was, but I just had to get into my routine and block everything else out. Usually there’s a mark in the centre of the crossbar and I focus on that. Thomond Park has a black dot, at Lansdowne Road it’s green. I imagine a little hoop between the sticks, like a gymnasium hoop, and I picture the ball going through that. I stepped back and the buzz words in my head were, ‘Stay tall and follow through.’
John Kelly: That was a major lift for us, but we still had seven minutes left. One try in the corner and we were gone.
Trevor Halstead: It was nerve-racking. I had a chilling feeling inside of me that they could score a five-pointer.
At that stage I was tired but I thought, ‘There is no way in hell that they are getting through. I don’t care if I have to run left to right 40 times to chase, they are not getting through.’ Everyone in our team felt exactly the same. We were just telling each other, ‘Just keep it up, keep it up, everyone up — let’s finish this off.’
Paul O’Connell: Near the end, just after Rog kicked the last penalty, I got a stinger on my hip and I was beginning to cramp a bit. I ran across then and caught the drop-off and the hip was hindering me. When I was getting treatment I told Kirsty [Peacock] that someone should get warmed up just in case. I’d jumped at a few lineouts before that and the leg was cramping, so you start thinking, ‘What good am I now?’ The next lineout was called on me. I jumped and my calf cramped on me again.
So then I was thinking, ‘If I have to make a tackle or turn and face someone and I cramp again then it could be game over.’ So it was time to get off the field.
Alan Quinlan: With six minutes to go I got the call from Jerry Holland to get ready. I was just buzzing.
Anthony Foley: Paulie came off and sat down beside me. There was no talk between us whatsoever. Paulie was knackered. I was knackered. We were just sitting there, literally numb.
Donncha O’Callaghan: Near the end they kicked a horrible ball down towards Hoggy and I remember thinking as I was running back, ‘This is so important.’ Not only did Hoggy take it but he tore into them. He was letting them know that we weren’t giving it up.
Anthony Foley: As the clock got closer to the 80 minutes I stood up. I was just feeling it so much I couldn’t sit down.
Denis Leamy: Right near the end, about 20 seconds left, they were coming at us again and we got a lucky decision for offside [against Bobo]. With Axel off, I was at number eight when the ref gave the scrum. I told Stringer I was going to get the ball off the pitch the first chance I got. I was going to tap it to myself, run over the line and try to keep the ball. He screamed at me not to. He said, ‘No! I’m doing it!’
John Hayes: After they got penalised, one of the boys had a look at Chris White, as if to say, ‘Is it over?’ I heard him say, ‘Ten seconds left’. That meant he was going to play the scrum.
Peter Stringer: Chris White had told me it was over the next time the ball went out of play. Just before I put the ball in at the scrum there was a huge roar from the crowd and I looked up at the clock. It was showing 80:02. I was trying to decide if I should risk passing it to Ronan when the ball came out of the scrum, or if should I kick it out myself. Yachvili came right around, trying to stop me from kicking to touch. He was well offside. I couldn’t kick it out then because he was standing right in my way.
Donncha O’Callaghan: When they came up from the scrum it was reset and we piled into it again. Strings was saying, ‘Leave it in there, leave it in there.’ He was as calm as you like. As if we were out on the training pitch in Musgrave Park.
Peter Stringer: It was a real solid scrum and it bought us a bit of time. There was no panic. As much as I wanted to get that bloody ball into the stand I thought, ‘It’s worth another couple of seconds.’ So I did nothing and the ref did it all.
Shaun Payne: He lifted his arm for a penalty and it was 80:30 on the clock. I thought, ‘It’s going to go off in one second here …’
Donncha O’Callaghan: I just thought, ‘It’s not over. There’ll be injury time. There’ll be something.’
Peter Stringer: Denis was standing there with the ball in his hands. There was a second or two where people weren’t sure if it was over or not. But I knew we just had to kick it out.
Denis Leamy: I was about to get it off the pitch when he robbed it off me. Tore it out of my hands. Robbed me of my glory moment.
Peter Stringer: I wasn’t taking any chances. We’d waited long enough for this to happen. I wanted it to be over. I was thinking, ‘Come on, give it to me, I’ll do it.’ Bang. Into the stand. And then he blew the final whistle.
I’d thought about it before the game — what I would do if we won. I wasn’t planning it — just trying to imagine what it would feel like. But you can’t. When the whistle went I started jumping around and then it just hit me.
We’ve won the European Cup.
John Hayes: I looked over and saw the Biarritz fellas. I felt sorry for them. Some of them were lying down, some of them were on their hands and knees, bent over. I thought, ‘Don’t worry, lads, I f---ing know how that feels.’ I shook hands with a lot of them. It was important to do that.
Anthony Foley: Everyone on the bench charged across the pitch.
Paul O’Connell: I ran towards the team and all of a sudden I was in tears.
Denis Leamy: It’s not very often you get rewarded for all your hard work. Sometimes you deserve a lot better and you don’t get it. But when you do win something like that, the feeling is incredible. I don’t think you can get it in any other walk of life.
Most of my happiness was for my family. And I thought about Conrad. To be honest, he’s never that far away from my thoughts.
Shaun Payne: I cried. Absolutely I cried. I’ve only been here three seasons, and you can see what it meant to me. How many times do you have to multiply that to get a measure of how much it meant to guys like Axel?
David Wallace: I thought of the people who had travelled with us all these years. The thought of going back without it was too much to bear on your shoulders.
John Hayes: They put up a platform on the pitch and I could see the cup. I’d been fine up to then, grand and relaxed. But when I saw that yoke out in the middle of the field, I was thinking, ‘Come on. Get up them steps and get that cup. I just want to get my hands on it.’ Biarritz had to go through first. I was looking at that, thinking, ‘I know what that’s like too, lads. Had that twice.’ Then we went up and all got our medals. Axel was last up. I was like, ‘Will you ever just hand it over to him?’ I just wanted to grab it and touch it, because I had never had touched it before.
Anthony Foley: I was standing there waiting for them to give me the trophy. Everybody in the stadium wanted to get cracking, but they were making me wait. I wanted to lift it so much I was nearly going to go over and just take it. They finally gave it to me and straight away I was surprised how bloody heavy it was. I had never touched it. I’d never asked anybody what it was like. I lifted it up and felt sheer joy. There was just madness in the stands.
Marcus Horan: The rest of the squad broke through security on the bottom corner of the pitch. They were all wearing their navy fleeces, and we saw them all sprinting towards us. We just went nuts with them.
Anthony Horgan: There were some tears. It’s hard not to. It was relief I felt, a weight off all our shoulders. There were a lot of things written about me and there are two ways of taking it — you can lie down and roll over or take it on the chin and bounce back. I’d like to think that, in a small way, I have done that. I have a gold medal in my drawer at home.
Donncha O’Callaghan: People talked about feeling just relief, but it wasn’t like that for me at all. It was just the greatest feeling that you’d won with your friends in an atmosphere that will never be recreated. Our supporters were just magnificent.
We were all running around with the cup and Strings said, ‘Calm down, slow down, we’ve got to enjoy this and remember it.’
I know what it’s like to lose and I’d hate it if anyone from Biarritz thought that we rubbed it in, that we tore the arse out of it and made then feel bad or disrespected them.
I wanted them to know that we knew what it was like for them.
Paul O’Connell: We were going very slowly around the pitch and I drank half a bottle of champagne. I don’t know why I did that. I suppose it was because we had just gone bananas.
We put the trophy in the middle and we all started dancing jigs.
Shaun Payne: A lot of my family had come over from South Africa. I met them outside the tunnel and it was really special. My dad has been an avid supporter, ever since
I started playing the game. He was pretty emotional, for a person who is not emotional at all. He just said, ‘This is the best day of my life.’ Declan Kidney: When the final whistle went, Brian [Hickey] said to me, ‘Come on, let’s go, they’ve got a lift put aside to get us down there.’ I’d love to have just watched it from there, even for a little while, but he dragged me away. I remember seeing Tom Kiernan leaving his seat at Lansdowne Road on the day Ulster won it in 1999. I watched him look around at the celebrations. It was a quiet moment for him and he’s a private man. I don’t know what he was thinking, but he was one of the driving forces behind this tournament and he should have been very proud of instigating a competition like this.
Just before I went into the dressing room, I met him. That was a special moment for me. I think Anthony Foley would call it a manly hug. He was just ecstatic. We didn’t say anything. There was nothing to be said. What was going on outside said it all. It meant so much to so many different people.
Anthony Foley: I took the cup up to my hotel room when I finally got to bed. There was a ledge over the bed and I left it up there. The following morning I woke up and I thought, ‘there it is - it wasn’t a dream’.
Extract from ‘Munster Our Road To Glory’ by Alan English, which is on sale now. There will be book signings today in Eason’s, Patrick St, Cork at 12.30, with Donncha O’Callaghan, Ronan O’Gara and Christian Cullen, and in O’Mahony’s, O’Connell St, Limerick at 12.30, also today, with Marcus Horan, David Wallace, Shaun Payne and Freddie Pucciarello.
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