Alone it stands: Castres v Munster - a rivalry 27 years in the making

Kenny Smith recalled: "The fans were booing all my kicks. My practise kicks! When I left to go in and tog out, the stadium had only a few hundred people there. When we ran on to the field, there was 10,000 there"

While the last chapter of the rivalry flattered to deceive the first meeting of a pair is a far more dramatic tale

No club has faced up to Munster in Europe more often than Castres. Their meeting at the Stade Pierre Fabre today will be the 20th across the last 27 years but one meant nothing to the other when the province made for the south of France in late 1995.

This was the first year of the newly-formed Heineken Cup. Professionalism was in its infancy. So much so that a dozen of the home team were employed by the pharmaceutical giant that bankrolled the club.

Kenny Smith would be back at work just six hours after a dawn return to Shannon Airport.

“We’d never heard of them,” said the Garryowen winger whose goal-kicking had seen him break into the provincial side only the season before. “In fact, Castres had a civic reception for us in their hall because they had never played an overseas side. That was a huge event. Massive.”

Another sign of the times was the Wednesday evening kick-off. With Castres’ ground yet to boast of floodlights, the match was transferred half an hour south down the D612 to Mazamet where the famed ‘l’esprit de clocher’ — the spirit of the bell tower — was in no way diluted.

“There was 10,000 French people there and we had the selectors and subs,” said Smith. “I was getting used to the stadium before the game, just picking targets behind the posts and stuff, so I was nodding balls over the posts to get used to it.

“The people there beforehand were spread over the ground and saw it. Then they started coming around the back of the goal and booing all my kicks. My practise kicks! When I left to go in and tog out the stadium had only a few hundred people there. When we ran on to the field, there was 10,000 there.

“It was a blinding wall of sound. We stood in front of the stand where we were all announced and every Irish player was booed. Brutal. Some of our lads were jumping out of their socks. They couldn’t wait for this to happen. They wanted the biggest, the best, the hardest, the toughest.”

Munster had played poorly but beaten Swansea in their pool opener at Thomond Park.

The performance against Castres was much better but they came up short in a game that they only needed to draw to make it through to the knockout stages in what was a truncated tournament.

Munster would ultimately lose all five of their first trips to France before finally landing a breakthrough win against Colomiers in 1999 and their inaugural experience on the continent that day in Mazamet was a lesson in what they could expect in this brave new dawn.

At least two players required stitches afterwards, one as a result of a stray boot, but a pack containing the likes of Terry Kingston, Peter Clohessy, Mick Galwey, Anthony Foley, and David Corkery gave as good they got in a game that rarely asked much of either set of backs.

“Think Garryowen going to Young Munster is a physical encounter. Think Con going to Shannon is a tough encounter. An Irish side going to France, oh my god,” said Smith. “This was before the days when Sky had 28 cameras at every match so there was an element of the unknown about it.”

All square with 12 points apiece, and with time almost up, Castres’ long and late surge for a winner seemed to be over when they knocked on. Welsh referee David Davies signalled for a Munster scrum while playing advantage but then David Corkery knocked on and the official waved play on.

It was an untimely error and one that allowed Nicholas Combes to score the killer try in the corner. Current France backs coach Laurent Labit who, like Smith, had scored a few and missed a few kicks up to that point, landed a conversion that hardly mattered.

Munster were out. No semi-final. Their Heineken Cup story would be littered with hard-luck stories until deliverance finally came at the Millennium Stadium in 2008: here was the original of the species, if one that seems largely forgotten now against some of the injustices that followed.

“I didn’t have my best day with the kicking but we were all square with the clock in the red. If we draw we go through because we have beaten Swansea. Corkery is running out of our 25 with Axel and me outside. A 50-yard kick up the field and the game is all over.

“Corks beats one and two. He tries to beat the third but the guy gets him and the ball squeezes out. Castres get it and score a try in the corner. The French were nearly in tears at the end of it. It was an unbelievable match but that was us out.

“So we did two things that year: we started the undefeated Thomond Park record, which I remind people about, and we ran a French side close.”

MUNSTER (v Castres, November 1995): Pat Murray capt; Richard Wallace, Sean MacCahill, Dan Larkin, Ken Smith; Paul Burke (Brian Walsh), David O’Mahony; John Fitzgerald, Terry Kingston, Peter Clohessy; Gabriel Fulcher, Paul O’Connor; Mick Galwey (Brian Toland temp), Anthony Foley, David Corkery (Brian Toland temp).