Title glory twice as nice, says Leamy

THE LIGHTS dimmed in the closed Millennium Stadium, darkness closed in, and in the background, a low throbbing drumbeat replicated perfectly the pounding Munster hearts in the final 15 minutes of what had been an absorbing contest.

Then, one by one, in an impressive presentation ceremony, the Munster forward eight came slowly into the lights concentrated on the pitch-centre dais; Horan, Flannery, Hayes, O’Callaghan, Quinlan, Wallace, Leamy and finally, generously and selflessly sharing the honour of accepting the glistening trophy with Ronan O’Gara — the man who taken over his captain’s duties while he was out injured — Paul O’Connell. It was good to see their faces, bruised and bloodied though they were, but smiling now

“It’s fantastic,” said Denis Leamy. “It’s what we’ve talked about over the last two years; we’ve talked and talked about it, we want to become among Europe’s elite. It’s great to back that up, it’s great to have the trophy coming back to Munster.

“In an odd way it means more than the first time, and that tells a lot. If we were going to win this game we had to match their great back row, and we did, I think the three of us had good games, managed to at least gain parity against a very good unit full of individual stars.”

Most impressive of the three, veteran flanker Alan Quinlan, man-of-the-match winner, described mid-week by opposite number Jean Bouilhou as a nuisance.

“He’s nearly more of a nuisance to us than he is to the opposition!” laughed Leamy.

“But he was fantastic today, a proud Tipperary-man, a proud Munster-man, he plays with his heart on his sleeve. He’s had a great season, he really has, I’m delighted he got man-of-the-match, he deserves every bit of it.”

“I’m very stiff and sore after that,” said Donncha O’Callaghan, “It was a hugely physical game, and to come out on top is incredible.

“Fellas really had to dig deep; it wasn’t the prettiest of rugby, it’s hard graft, to pick and jam like that for as long as we did — maybe we’ll have to do something else but that’s what we do.”

From the 65th minute, after O’Gara’s fourth successful kick from four to give them their winning lead, they decided to close this game down. Not pretty, reckoned Toulouse All-Black second half Byron Kelleher.

“I don’t care, my medal is in my arse pocket!” said Donncha, “And I make no apologies for it. It was ugly, we know that, but it’s effective for us.”

John Hayes spoke of the confrontation between the packs in near-gladiatorial terms.

“We always keep working and sometimes, during a break in play, you look across at the opposition to see how they’re sustaining their effort — do they look more tired than we do? It’s like a boxer looking across the ring to the other corner, and knowing your opponent is shagged. That gives you a lift to go for it again.” Like the time they muscled over their only try, touched down by Leamy, or the many times they turned over Toulouse ball in contact, or the time particularly that they buckled the Toulouse scrum on their own put-in on their own 5m line? “Yeah, like any French team they use the scrum as a barometer, we knew we had to go at them today and that was a big lift for us, to get a shove on them on their own line, that’s the kind of thing games like this are won and lost on.”

Orchestrating that forward effort was young Tomás O’Leary.

He was making only his third Heineken Cup start at scrum-half but that didn’t stop him barking out the order to keep it tight.

“There was no point really,” O’Leary said. “We weren’t making many yards but the forwards were keeping it tight, we were hanging onto the ball and that was key.

“The last 10 minutes was always going to be intense, especially in a one-score game, it was just about holding onto the ball and keep them in their half, that’s what it’s all about. Nine and ten (O’Gara was making the same call) should dictate the game, we tried to keep it tight, no point in trying to play a lot of ball at that stage. Everyone is kind of dictating things.”

And the atmosphere? Even for a man who has known Munster and All-Ireland final days in hurling, winner of an All-Ireland minor medal with Cork, Tomás was impressed.

“Ah, unbelievable. I never played senior in Croke Park but this was phenomenal, you’ll never get better support than that, anywhere in the world. Even the New Zealand lads were saying, this tops everything.” As for Byron’s charge, boring rugby?

“I don’t care, I have the medal in my back-pocket. Happy days.” Oh, happy days.