The blood runs red but blue is the hue for Reddan

EOIN REDDAN couldn’t have dared dream of days like tomorrow when he was growing up.

For a start, rugby was only just turning professional when he first took an interest in the game and, even if there was such a thing as a Magners League Grand Final back then, the kid at Old Crescent would not have pictured himself wearing a blue jersey.

As a Limerick boy, red was the colour of choice for aspiring young rugby players. But Reddan was forced to set new goals midway through his second season with his native province, when he was informed there would be no new contract on the table.

It was a bitter blow to take. He had rejoined the province in 2003 after a stint with Connacht and saw action in 24 games in his first season but found himself wedged behind Peter Stringer and Mike Prendergast thereafter.

By the time he shipped the bad news, he had played just four games in the 2004-05 campaign — and would play just twice more — but his greatest nightmare wasn’t long in morphing into a dream opportunity.

“It was January when they said there wasn’t anything there for me and I’d have to wait till June for them to make a call. I went home and literally the phone rang and Shaun Edwards was on the phone saying “do you want to come to Wasps?

“It was the biggest coincidence of my life. I just said yes. I didn’t even ask about years, money or anything. It was literally done in five minutes. That was the way it went. At that age you don’t want to be waiting around three or four months and ending up with nothing.

“I spoke to Munster then and left on a very good note. I said ‘look, obviously I can’t wait around, I have this opportunity’. Alan Gaffney was coach at the time and he was very happy that I got that opportunity. They wished me all the best.”

He got it.

Reddan played over 100 times for the club during his four-year stint in England. He even captained them in the absence of Lawrence Dallaglio and left having claimed a Heineken Cup and Premiership title.

It was a success rate that eventually caught the eye of Eddie O’Sullivan who promoted him ahead of Stringer midway through Ireland’s ill-fated 2007 World Cup campaign although he subsequently fell behind another Munster nine, Tomás O’Leary, in that queue.

Even so, his services continued to generate demand and his decision to join Leinster has been rewarded with greater game time at national level and a second Heineken Cup medal picked up last weekend at Northampton’s expense.

And now, this. Munster. Thomond. A Grand Final.

“It definitely adds to it being from Limerick,” he admitted yesterday.

“All my family will be there and it will be great to be able to play in front of them. The game itself will overtake that. It’s a huge occasion.

“A lot of Leinster fans will travel down and it’s a Munster team who have performed very well and have finished top of the league by right. They will want to defend that and try and finish their season on a high.”

His responses on Munster as individuals or a team are more abrupt. Evasive even.

A query on Conor Murray, the young scrum-half who has emerged since the New Year, is polite but devoid of any details or dissection of his opposite number’s threat or style.

Suggestions that Munster will be seeking a win that would save their season are also given an understandably wide berth but he concurred with the theory that facing their greatest rivals may actually suit Leinster in their quest to regain last week’s heights.

“It does make it easier this week. The rivalry has been there forever. Whether Munster play Leinster in a friendly or Magners League, it doesn’t matter what game it is, it is always going to be tough and I don’t think this week is going to be any different.

“It will probably help both teams to focus on the match itself and not the occasion, not doubles, not the league, just simply the match. Really, both teams need to be up to it physically to win the game.”