'We were blessed. That was day one' - Chris Pim on Leinster's journey from Milan fright to another European showpiece

The Laois man had a front row seat when the game went professional and the province made their first steps in the continental tournament.

HARDWARE: Leinster's Chris Pim celebrates victory over Ulster in 1995. Pic: INPHO/Billy Stickland

Another year, another tilt at history. Win or lose, we’ve become accustomed to the sight of Leinster on days like these. Already four-time winners, this is the province’s fourth appearance in a Champions Cup final in the last six seasons. Over 50,000 punters will fill the Aviva Stadium as they go toe to toe with the elite of the French game.

This is just how it is now. But not how it was.

Chris Pim was there when this obsession started between club and competition. It was, to be honest, more of a giddy fling back then. An exotic and uncertain relationship that slow-burned from their first game in a tiny Milanese ground at the start of November in 1995. He could never have seen that morphing into this.

“There would be no point in me lying,” he says, “absolutely no chance.” 

Toulouse had played the first ever game of European rugby the day before, in Bucharest of all places. Leinster’s opener was a tricky trip to Comunale Giurati to face a Milan side boasting a fistful of players from an Italian national team that had beaten Ireland in Treviso six months earlier.

Pim was captain for a game that just about made it to four figures in terms of paying punters. A Niall Woods try put the visitors in front with 14 minutes to go. They won with three points to spare but only because the brilliant Diego Dominguez, the Argentinian-born Azzurri out-half, missed a bucket of kicks at the post.

“I mean, we were blessed. That was day one.” 

These were the wild west days of professionalism. The game had been declared ‘open’ little over two months before, at a meeting of the International Rugby Board in a Parisian hotel, but the prairies were still to be settled and this survival of the fittest scene led to some strange standoffs.

Leinster qualified for a European semi-final against Cardiff after just one more game - a win over Pontypridd - but a chunk of their Ireland players were due to tour Canada on a pre-Five Nations tour soon after and a squeeze was put on the province not to play them. Jim Glennon, the head coach, was having none of it. Neither was his skipper.

“I remember having a complete stroke about that. One of the other stories during that week was when we heard Cardiff were getting three grand a man for the game if they won. We were getting, I don’t know, an absolute pittance and lads were talking about going on strike.

“I remember absolutely bulling that lads were thinking about not playing in a European Cup semi-final. I would have paid to play in it, never mind not playing in it because of money. It was nonsense and the union ended up giving us a few quid, I can’t remember what it was.” 

Pim’s Leinster career stretched nine years from start to finish with only the last two coming after the game’s administrators crossed that Rubicon in the French capital. His memories of those playing days reflect the priorities of the time and the manner in which eyes had to readjust from local horizons to a wider setting.

Ulster had been the bane of his existence in a blue shirt far too often, especially up in Ravenhill, so beating them 31-3 in Donnybrook in 1996 and winning the interpros for the first time in a decade sits as an especially sweet memento.

The day they claimed two pushover tries in front of the posts against a vaunted Munster pack in Thomond Park is another, and there is an extra relish in his voice when he recounts the roll call of AIL trips to Limerick with Old Wesley.

“There were 10,000 people down in Shannon, or ‘The Killing Fields’ in Young Munster. Those were absolutely fantastic. It was absolute savagery down there. We used to go down there, these soft Dublin 4 Protestants, and we used to beat Young Munster down there and they were some of the best rugby days of my life. I just loved going to them.” 

The AIL’s heyday was glorious but brief. Wesley had been among the clubs trying to make pay-for-play work, Pim recalling how he was paid £400 to turn out with a tenner or 20 quid deducted in the event that he missed a training session. His first Leinster contract just about breached the £2,000 barrier.

He looks back on it all now with nothing short of joy.

TRUE BLUE: Chris Pim in full flow in the European Cup in 1996. Picture: INPHO/Patrick Bolger

Born in Mountmellick, Co. Laois, Pim discovered rugby in school in Waterford. His education in the game was sharpened by a stint in university in Scotland where he played against giants like John Jeffries and Finlay Calder. A short spell in New Zealand brought him into the orbit of Sean Fitzpatrick, Michael Jones, Grant Fox and a skinny winger called Joe Schmidt.

Some have made the claim that he was the best Leinster player not to earn a cap for Ireland. His own assessment is less flattering, any success he enjoyed credited to a ferocious work ethic in training for club and province which he could accommodate around his job at the time as a rep with Beamish & Crawford.

The regimented regimes of the modern game would have suited him to a tee – he still exercises daily – but he feels he would struggle with the prospect of jobbing it as a “journeyman”, even if that was within the slick machine that is the current Leinster operation.

He got to see the world through rugby. Canada, South Africa, New Zealand and more. His eldest son Sam played rugby on Erasmus in Queensland and won two Premierships in Hong Kong. The next in line, Reuben, had a quick look at the MLR in New Orleans, and there is time for the youngest, Noah, to follow on after college in Trinity.

He can’t for the life of him understand why more fringe players don’t spread their wings and opt for a shot at a gig in France or the MLR in America. “I don’t know how Leinster keep lads happy,” he wonders. “It’s bizarre.” Days like today go a long way to explaining that. Pim is more of a regular at Old Wesley where two of his lads play but he'll swap his seat on the sofa on Saturday for a stint in the Aviva’s stands.

Almost 28 years and a world away from where it all started.