Loyalty money can’t buy

DONNCHA O’Callaghan is under no illusions about the size of the task facing Munster and the province’s supporters at Thomond Park.

Toulon, the rich young pretenders to the European rugby aristocracy visit Limerick this afternoon looking to take down one of the staunchest members of the Heineken Cup establishment and after an opening pool three defeat to London Irish last weekend, O’Callaghan has taken to the barricades.

Clearly stung by back-to-back defeats on the road, to Leinster in the Magners League and then last Saturday’s Heineken Cup loss at the Madejski Stadium, the Ireland and Lions lock is seeking home comforts and some fervent support at a sold-out Thomond Park as Munster bid to keep their European campaign on track with an essential victory.

“If ever we needed to get back to Thomond and if ever we needed our fans to rally round us, and for us to put in a good performance, it’s this Saturday,” O’Callaghan said.

“It’s hugely disappointing, the last two weeks. We were building up a bit of momentum there and were doing well at the start of the Magners League and we haven’t brought that forward the last two weekends. It’s good though. Sometimes you can gloss over things in victory. It takes a loss to really identify the problems. When you get a win you don’t really look as hard as you do in a loss and there’s areas we need to improve upon, 100 per cent.”

Not least at the lineout, where he and Donnacha Ryan spent a frustrating afternoon last weekend at the hands of Nick Kennedy and Bob Casey, a situation underscored by the sight of O’Callaghan darting around the front of the line on a trick play in an attempt to outfox the dominant Exiles locks.

“They did (cause a lot of problems),” he said. “They’ve a very good lineout. They’re good at controlling things, cutting off an awful lot of your options. But having said that, if you look back at the video, they only took one ball against us and the rest of it was down to our poor execution between jumpers, poor lifts and stuff like that and that’s the frustrating part of it.”

Toulon’s visit presents an equally tough examination, with director of rugby Philippe Saint-André having assembled an all-star cast with huge amounts of cash from club owner and comic book publisher Mourad Boudjellal. “They’re very strong. Very strong scrum, very good lineout, what you’d expect from the players they have throughout their team and what you’d expect from a French team. They’ve huge pride in their scrum and their mauls and we know it’s going to be really physical up front. We’re going to have to rock up on Saturday with our hard hats on because it’s going to be confrontational.”

Giving your all against a team with it all, although O’Callaghan believes Munster have something moneybags Toulon cannot buy. “When we saw the draw, we thought: one team will come out of this group.

“Home matches are vital and if things had gone better last week we’d still be here this week with a huge game. It’s just the beauty of the European Cup and it’s why it means so much to us.

“You have to be at your best week in, week out. And it is great to test yourself against big squads, clubs with huge money. And to be fair, leaving money aside, if you were throwing a team together, you would still have the likes of Denis Leamy running out for Munster, you would still have Ronan O’Gara, you would still have Peter Stringer; the guys who care about the place. And hopefully that will come out on Saturday and that is always what it comes down to, isn’t it? It is about playing for your team more than playing for your bank account.

“I have been lucky to have been involved with this team for a long time and I have never felt that I have been playing with team-mates but with my friends. And it is a hugely important thing for me. I know it is said a lot but when the s*** hits the fan you go further for a friend than for a team-mate. And that is what it always comes down to. It comes down to your love for the team and for the game and hopefully on Saturday we can front up to that because in the last two weeks we haven’t.

“It is all well and good to ask supporters to come and shout their heads off but if we are playing like a bag of s***, it makes it hard for them.”