Red-faced but really feeling the Blues

GO UP to Cork Airport, or roll out the road to Shannon today, or tomorrow morning, and you’ll clock them immediately in the queues.

Self-effacing people who are almost apologetic about their presence. If you make eye contact with them they suddenly become interested in imaginary lint on their jacket sleeves or the reflective qualities of the polish on their shoes.

They’re not whistling tunelessly and looking up at the ceiling, but they might as well be: meet the Meinsters, the people who booked their tickets to the Heineken Cup final in anticipation of Munster participating in same, and who now face a weekend in Edinburgh with the blues, not the reds.

Whether or not such a person is an actual Leinster supporter is a thorny question which calls for a sharp definition of terms. For instance, is being in a stadium a commitment of one sort or other to bolstering the atmosphere? In that sense, is a participant a supporter in some way?

Those are questions that demand the focus of some of the great minds among us, and which probably deserve some of the great answers, like Bill Clinton’s deathless retort to questions about his entanglement with Monica Lewinsky (“That depends on what your definition of ‘is’ is”).

If you were to ask some of those supposed Leinster-fans-for-the-weekend, no doubt they’d reject out of hand any suggestion that they were lending succour to the Easterlings by their presence.

If you were to ask others, they would no doubt take the mature view that as they are Irish, and one of the participating teams is Irish, and that said side are in a final they’re attending, well of course they’ll give them the odd shout, why wouldn’t they, sure weren’t we shouting for them in Cardiff just the same a few weeks back, I mean to say I bumped into Bernard Jackman one day in a service station outside Portlaoise and the man was as sound as you’d get, held the door open for the child going in for wedges and a sausage roll...

Technically speaking this is when one doth protest too much.

There’s a marked difference between the Lunsters who were outed in the run-up the Heineken Cup semi-final – people from Leinster who support Munster – and the Munster supporters who will be in Murrayfield tomorrow for the decider.

Lunsters are habitual followers of the southern province, according to experienced observers. The Munster supporters in Edinburgh made a reasonable call based on their side’s past performances and the likelihood of accommodation and tickets being in short supply if, as was expected, Munster made the final.

Now, though... they’re fully entitled to sit calmly in their seats applauding the efforts of both sides with polite neutrality, but politeness? Neutrality? In a final? Surely that would go against their natural inclinations?

Then again, what about the equally natural inclination to wish eternal damnation on Leinster jerseys once spotted on the field of play?

The only advice we can give is Judaeo-Christian: let every man save his own soul.

It doesn’t do to be too harsh about the moral and ethical choices faced by those heading to Scotland this weekend, as readers are likely to have close friends or family among the pilgrims.

This column, for instance, numbers a brother-in-law among the voyagers to Murrayfield. Gentle soul that he is, peace of mind was one of the first items in his suitcase, even if one of his more mischievous relations by marriage sought to stir it up beforehand: “I suppose you’ll be shouting for Leinster?”

“Why not?” he said.

“And wearing a nice blue top as you’re at it?”

“Easy there, chief,” said the b-in-law. “There’s supporting and there’s supporting.”

True. Just as there are men, and then there are Meinsters.

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