Brothers who went to war with a smile

IT’S not that they hate each other, they just hate to lose to each other.

The date May 2, 2009, will forever be etched in the minds of Irish rugby followers. It was balmy that evening but Croke Park, the home of Gaelic games in Ireland, was absolutely heaving and buzzing with unsuppressed excitement as Leinster and Munster prepared to do battle in the semi-final of the Heineken Cup.

For the previous month, it wasn’t just sporting Ireland that couldn’t wait for the day to come round. The rivalry between the provinces extended back over a century and had always been intense. But even that increased a thousandfold when Munster clobbered Leinster by 30-6 in the 2006 Heineken Cup semi-final in front of a full house at Lansdowne Road. That scoreline was bad enough for the supporters of the losing side, but the fact that 75% of the fans in a stadium situated in the game’s heartland in the capital were bedecked in the red of Munster was a source of deep embarrassment to Leinster supporters. They vowed they would never lose on the terraces and stands again, whatever about on the field of play, and when the scene was re-enacted, albeit north of the Liffey, three years later, the Boys in Blue matched, if not outnumbered, the Red Army.