Munster's dream doused on field at Twickenham

The pub in Shannon Airport was full of people wearing red T-shirts with the slogan "I'm supporting Munster".

As Saturday night wore on, many of them were supporting the bar as well. It was only hours after Northampton's 9-8 win in the European Rugby Cup final at Twickenham, and yet for Munster fans and airport staff alike it had already been a long weekend.

On the 60th anniversary of Dunkirk, an epic retreat was under way, as the call went out for every available aircraft to go to London and bring the boys (and girls) back home. And back they came; bruised by defeat, battered by the strength of sterling, but ready to fight another day.

In future years they may speak of the Twickenham spirit. When the Munster team appeared on an airport balcony at 11 p.m., several hundred supporters below defied the gloom to give them a rousing cheer. And when captain Mick Galwey spoke of disappointing the fans, the crowd would not hear of it. "No! No!" they shouted.

The Cork City Jazz Band had already served up the day's umpteenth Fields of Athenry (if those fields weren't low-lying to start with, they were well flattened by Sunday). Now Galwey introduced Tom Tierney to sing what he said was the team's real anthem, and the substitute scrum-half stepped forward to deliver a version of Stand up and Fight which, even if his high notes were about as high as Athenry pastureland, sent the fans home happy.

What supporters were left in Limerick on Saturday watched the game in the pubs, to the detriment of a planned open-air party. The Evening Echo had spent £15,000 to provide a superb large screen and sound system (hugely amplifying referee Joel Dume's every comment, as well as the noise of Twickenham's near-70,000 crowd), with a late change of venue to St John's Castle.

Twenty Portaloos were laid on, and there was even some theatre, involving a wicked witch, a good fairy and a frog. Sadly, while Munster have been playing champagne rugby all season, the Limerick weather has not caught up.

With black clouds hovering, the attendance in the castle never topped 150, and many of those were small children less interested in watching the game than persecuting the witch.

Midway through the first half, there was thunder (either that or it was Monsieur Dume's stomach rumbling), and when the skies finally opened, those without umbrellas had to resort to watching from the Portaloos.

The rain relented as the game drew to its nail-biting close, however. Damp as we were, the drama was gripping as, in Twickenham, Northampton withstood the pressure and, in the castle, the witch defied increasingly concerted efforts to knock her hat off.

But for all except those two parties, it ended in disappointment. The frog had been waiting all afternoon for a princess to kiss him, much as the red shirts in Twickenham awaited a caress from Lady Luck. By the final whistle, however, the prince was still a frog; and for all their bravery, Munster's European dream had finally croaked.