“It’s just a big lump of concrete but at half five on a Saturday evening, it’s a lot different”

PAUL O’CONNELL has discovered every conceivable way of getting into Thomond Park since he first played there with Ard Scoil Rís.

He has accompanied his parents Michael and Sheila; he has arrived in the school bus, the Young Munster team bus, the Munster team bus — and even scuttled in over the perimeter wall to watch a Heineken Cup game!

So he should know his way around the place better than most, and no doubt that will be a help, however small, as he leads his Munster side into one of the biggest of all their confrontations — tomorrow’s game against Leicester Tigers — at the soon-to-be remodelled stadium. While he knows better than most that it isn’t one of the most salubrious spots on earth, he still has a lot of respect for what it stands for.