O’Connell hails team effort

AT KICK-OFF it was rocking, 30,325 mostly red-bedecked fans giving it hell; as the minutes, the seconds, wound exhaustingly down, such was the tension in this absorbing Heineken Cup semi-final that half an hour after the final whistle the Ricoh Arena was still twitching.

After the torrential half-time rain, what had begun as a short-sleeve rugby ball-flashing fest became a sleeves rolled-up dog-fight. In either set of conditions, however, Paul O’Connell and his multi-talented pack are well equipped to cope, and though the man-of-the-match crystal bauble went to the Munster captain, really it could have gone to any one of those forwards, a fact quickly acknowledged.

“Man-of-the-match is a funny thing, you can make one or two breaks, one or two carries and you get an award like that but you get other guys then like Hayes or Donners [O’Callaghan] who might clean out 20 rucks in a row and won’t get it.”

No-one can argue with the award, however, and no-one can begrudge it either. With a series of injuries since he came back from the World Cup, a World Cup in which he suffered as much criticism as anyone else, he’s had a tough six or seven months has Paul O’Connell; there can be no disputing now though that he’s back to his imperious, dominating, intimidating, marauding best, and yesterday was a tour-de-force.

Unfortunate as O’Connell has been in those past few months, there’s another whose misery goes back even further; Alan Quinlan too had a magnificent outing yesterday, yet another in a season of them, an outing capped with an opportunist try just before the break, a game-breaking score. His captain paid deserved tribute, the way the try was taken especially.

“Rog took a quick tap, Leams [Leamy] took it up, Dougie [Howlett] made a great break. In fairness to Quinny, with quick ball we normally leave it to the scrum-half, let him play it, but you have guys like Wally [Wallace] in the past who have picked up quick ball like that and scored tries. It’s one of those things, you pick that ball and you score, you’re a hero, you pick it and you don’t, you get people breathing down your neck. But that’s the confidence of the guy [Quinlan], that’s his footballing ability, he picked it going against the grain, came back the way the ball had come, fended someone off. It was a great try but he’s just such a clever footballer; sometimes guys like that do things and you’ve just got to get in behind them, they’ve spotted something most others wouldn’t.”

And his most unMunster-like celebration afterwards, turning to the Munster thousands at that end of the ground, hands raised triumphantly in the air, index fingers pointing to the sky? “Yeah, Quinny’s celebrations, the Messiah turning to the crowd,” he laughs. “He’s had a great season, he’s such a mentally strong try. Since he scored that World Cup try against Argentina [2003], he’s had injuries, he’s had suspensions, but he just keeps coming back, he’s so hungry. He’s an example to any young guy coming through — at this level you’re going to have injuries, things are going to go against you, guys get mentally set back, but Quinny seems to get stronger and stronger.”

What of those final tension-filled minutes, Munster with a vulnerable two-point lead, what was the mindset of the team’s decision-maker? Hold on or push on? “A bit of both,” he said. “At times you’re thinking, just kick long, or set targets when you get down there, just hold onto the ball, but we still ran it from our own 22, Quinny made a break, popped it onto Marcus [Horan], a prop — there’s a lot of confidence there. Another time we made a break up the left and chipped ahead, we were going for the scores, which is a measure of the confidence. At times you do need to just set targets but one good thing we have is that if someone makes a decision, then right, wrong or whatever we tend to back it, get behind it. That’s a trust thing, something we have in each other, it tends to make bad decisions into right ones.”

Already many Munster fans have made their plans and arrangements for Cardiff, and the final on May 24; obviously the team haven’t had that luxury, but now, thoughts turn to Toulouse. Respect, says Paul, respect for Toulouse, but respect also for those fans. “They’ll be there — everyone is talking about the credit crunch but I think it will be irrelevant to them!

“A lot of those Toulouse players have been there [the Millennium Stadium] before with France, they’ll have good memories of that ground. It’s going to be another massive hard game, should be a great occasion; it has been every time we’ve met them so this will be no different.”