Leinster V Munster a faded rivalry that still puts bums on seats

Rob Kearney admitted this week that the bite and hatred that once made the Leinster-Munster rivalry so raw and visceral has been lost.

Sat, 06 Oct, 2018 - 07:20

By Brendan O’Brien

Rob Kearney admitted this week that the bite and hatred that once made the Leinster-Munster rivalry so raw and visceral has been lost.

Ronan O’Gara will tell you that the last ‘big’ game between them was the 2011 Magners League final.

The absence of a fit Jonathan Sexton from the line-up for this evening’s chapter only lends weight to those assertions, yet some of the numbers associated with this long-running meeting of minds and bodies beg to differ.

Leinster have been the dominant partner in their recent dances, but six of their eight wins through the last 10 meetings have been recorded with a score or less separating the provinces and the numbers willing to watch them go at it continue to impress.

Munster have provided the opposition for the European and PRO14 champions eight times at the Aviva Stadium and the average attendance comes in at 46,352. That’s slightly more than the average for the province’s 15 European fixtures (46,014) hosted at the venue this decade.

No other PRO14 opponent would merit opening up the main stadium’s gates for a regular season game and the expectation today is that the attendance figure will stretch north of 50,000 for the fourth time in the last 25 meetings of the sides.

It clearly retains a considerable market value.

Robbie Henshaw spoke in the run-up to this instalment about the thrill he got two seasons ago when he made his Leinster debut against Munster at the state-of-the-art Ballsbridge venue, how the buzz was electric and what a massive occasion it was.

Yet, ask him if the pressures inherent to this fixture are any different to the interpros he played in while with Connacht and the answer strips away another layer from the mythology that has grown over the facade of this fixture like ivy on a stately home.

“You just feel that competitiveness when you go out against them. It’s two teams going at it, like any interpro, I suppose. You can’t get too fixed on emotions. You have to stick to your gameplans.

“For me, it felt like any normal interpro, just with the added crowds around the place.”

It used to be so different.

Eric Miller kicking Anthony Foley between the legs in the 2001 Celtic League final at Lansdowne Road launched an era that reached a crescendo towards the end of the last decade, when Leinster won a Heineken Cup semi-final in front of a world-record club crowd at Croke Park.

The rivalry bubbled and spat around then and sparks were frequent. Felipe Contepomi raged at what he regarded as the disrespect of some Munster players as he lined up a kick at Musgrave Park in 2005. The chants of “easy, easy” from the packed stands as Munster claimed a 33-9 win would have only fed the flames.

Unwanted controversy was an occasional accomplice to it all. Alan Quinlan shipped a 12-week ban for making contact with Leo Cullen’s eyes in 2009 and John Hayes earned a four-week ban for a reckless stamp on a prone Cian Healy five months later. In 2013, Paul O’Connell swung a foot at a ball on the deck in Thomond Park and caught a prone Dave Kearney in the head. Though clearly accidental, the lack of a citing didn’t sit well with Leinster coach and captain, respectively Joe Schmidt and Leo Cullen.

O’Connell, like Quinlan four years earlier, spoke some time after the event about how there was no intention to do harm, but the ill-advised nature of their actions highlighted the effect the febrile atmosphere associated with these games could have.

The image of Sexton screaming at a prone Ronan O’Gara after Gordon D’Arcy’s try in that Croke Park game nine years ago still stands as the apogee of the rivalry in the modern era, but such raw emotion has been dialled down these days.

Munster had four players shown yellow cards during a bruising 34-23 win in the Aviva in 2014, while James Cronin found himself kicking his heels for four weeks two years later after his foot made contact with the face of Jamison Gibson-Park.

Neither act came close to generating the sort of fervour that enveloped the aftermath of meetings in the preceding years. Leinster-Munster is still the biggest of the interpros, today will stress that again, but the gap between it and the rest is not what it once was.

“I actually don’t think there is a big difference nowadays,” said Sean O’Brien this week. “Obviously, the Aviva, the crowd, you have a lot more people at the game and that’s one of the biggest differences really, but it’s very competitive in every interpro game.”

It may be that it is different behind closed doors. It may be that there has been plenty of effing and blinding about the opposition this week interspersed with all the talk of processes and consumption of greens and protein shakes. Then again, maybe not.

Kearney was only saying what we all know: That this relationship has been dulled by the realities of the player-management system, the greater good that is the national team and by the realisation that Europe is just around the corner. Leinster have Wasps at the RDS in five days’ time and Kearney’s recollection of the Monday morning review session after that home loss to Munster four years ago tells us all we need to know about where this outing lies in the list of priorities.

“The thing about going into Europe the following week is you have to turn the page pretty quickly on Monday morning, because obviously that first game in Europe is really important, to get off to a good start,” he explained.

“I do remember that week. There was a big emphasis on getting the review done early and just turning the page, trying to move on as quickly as you can, but any time Munster beat you at home it’s a tough one to take.”

Tough, but not the trauma it once was.

The rivalry: 10 seasons in numbers