Mick Galwey front and centre of Munster fans' memorable day out in La Rochelle
MUNSTER MARCH: Munster fans ahead of the game in La Rochelle. Pic: ©INPHO/Billy Stickland.
A quarter of a century after leading Munster out at Twickenham in their first Heineken Cup final appearance, Mick Galwey was front and centre on a much more enjoyable European day out as the province’s supporters took La Rochelle by storm.
A first meeting with a side coached by Ronan O’Gara was always going to be special and the stars aligned in the small French port town on Saturday as at least 3,000 travelling supporters turn La Rochelle red.
O’Gara had gone into town on the morning of the match to meet his fellow old boys, ‘Gaillimh’ among them, and he revealed it was his former captain who sowed the seeds for the pre-match tribute paid at Stade Marcel-Deflandre to Kerry GAA legend Mick O’Dwyer, who had been buried in his hometown of Waterville the previous day.
There was a minute’s applause around the sold-out 18,000 stadium as O’Dwyer’s image was shown on the big screens and O’Gara said: “I thought it would be good for the Munster people to see that.
“He was buried yesterday and I'm sure if I was in Ireland I'd be there or taking a moment out to appreciate everything he's done for Irish sport. And a lot of good Munster people are from a GAA background.
"I met Gaillimh this morning and Gaillimh planted the idea with me so he still works his magic wherever he goes.”
The Munster squad had been blown away by the reception they received when their bus pulled up to the stadium before kick-off, hundreds of red-jerseyed supporters thronging the vehicle and cheering them off it and through the gates with Galwey in the middle of things once again, standing atop a cherry picker waving a Munster flag and leading the singing of “Zombie” to the delight of those around him and interim head coach Ian Costello.
“It’s incredible,” Costello said of the numbers who followed Munster to France. “I went down (to the port) to meet a few friends just to get out of the hotel for an hour and it’s shivers down your neck stuff.
“I think I saw a picture of Gaillimh up on a cherry picker singing ‘Zombie’. That’s next level.
“When we came in, someone sent us a video of the crowd outside, so we knew it was big. Northampton this year was incredible, but I hadn’t seen anything like that for a long, long time.
“That set the tone. What it means to our supporters. There was talk of 2,000 here, there were way more than 2,000. We got that sense this morning, so it is special, and that’s probably why last week (winning in the URC at Connacht) was so important too because we want to make sure we’ve our bread and butter looked after to be in this competition.
“The reality is now, we want to have three more days like this. You take one game at a time but there’s no point in this being our cup final. It would nearly disrespect what the club have done.
“We’ve three matches left to have a crack at winning a trophy.”
To have that chance, Munster will want to have as many supporters behind them for next weekend’s quarter-final at Bordeaux-Begles, following the Top 14 side’s victory over Ulster at Stade Chaban-Delmas on Sunday.
The Champions Cup format with back-to-back weekends for the first two knockout rounds does not do any favours for travelling supporters of any side and a second trip to France inside eight days may prove too costly for many, although Costello begged to differ in La Rochelle on Saturday night.
“You won’t get too many people complaining from what I saw. There’ll be kids’ piggybanks raided. There’ll be people here, that’s the magic of it.
“There’s people that would prefer not to go on summer holidays to get two weekends like this. That’s what’s special about the club. If we are in Bordeaux or we’re at home, I think the game will have huge support.”
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