Just like Cowen, things have not been going too well for Munster but they put on a good show on Saturday
IN THOMOND Park no one can hear you scream. It is a wonderful place. A quick run down the motorway to Limerick and you are in another world. Maybe.
In the car you hear the Taoiseach’s announcement that he is resigning as leader of Fianna Fáil (but not as Taoiseach, for reasons which remain obscure). In Thomond Park, home of the Munster rugby team, the crowd is struggling to restrain its grief. Everyone here looks cheerful, prosperous, sensible.
Things have not been going too well for Munster either. For the first time in 12 years they have failed to qualify for the quarter-finals of the Heineken Cup. Everywhere eras are ending. Yesterday one commentator summed up the performance of the youth wing as “high on grunt and low on skill and ambition”. That was Peter O’Reilly on the Munster Academy. A lack of forward planning can bring even the most beautiful organisation to ruin.
On the approach to the stadium, outside The Dug Out Bar, a céilí band is playing the theme song from The Flintstones. The band is seated under a banner which reads "Mad 4 Road", which just might be its name; what do I know, I'm from Dublin. The steward you ask for directions is from Latvia, he says. The band swings in to a lively version of Yankee Doodle. I'm telling you, this country could survive anything.
Inside Thomond Park things are a bit complicated, culturally. The rugby is rubbish for the first half, and playing to a packed house. Patches of this most famous pitch are worn bare. It’s Munster versus London Irish. The London Irish fans are wearing leprechaun hats, green wigs and feather boas, and shouting “Ireland” in emotional tones.
The Munster fans are everybody else, dressed in red and shouting “Munster”. They don’t care what happens in the rest of the country. And sitting here, high up in the West Stand, looking over Limerick as it lies in the winter sun, you don’t care either.
It is strange to think that this is the sort of occasion that Brian Cowen would enjoy a great deal.
One of the striking things about the crowd is the number of old men in it. Men much older than the current Taoiseach or any of his rivals. Men over 60, in layers of leisurewear – it is freezing – chatting and laughing. They’re healthy enough to enjoy pensions so adequate that their like will never be seen again. The journey to your seat, up steep steps that you’re too puffed to count, is a fitness test in itself.
Just before kick-off there is a rousing rendition of Stand Up and Fight, the Toreador song from Carmen. Later on the crowd sings the same song to the players. We are encouraged to fight until we hear the bell, that final bell. Luckily, someone behind us has brought a large bell with them today. This is just the attention to detail which is going to drag us from the economic mire – one day.
As well as a bell there is someone four rows behind with a trumpet. It could be a London Irish fan – here most of the songs are about Ireland. And there is a man standing beside the trumpeter with a London Irish flag in one hand and a pint in the other. But the trumpeter could still be a Munster fan, apparently. If the trumpet plays The Fields of Athenryonce it plays The Fields of Athenryhalf a dozen times. "Shut the **** up", says the nice Munster supporter beside us mildly, as the trumpet launches us at the lonely prison walls for the fourth time.
After each little number on the trumpet we, its neighbours, give it a short round of applause. This civilised arrangement prevails until half-time. After that people are too worried to continue with it.
Whoever he’s supporting the trumpet player is fond of the work of Ennio Morricone. In the freezing damp of a January afternoon Clint Eastwood chords waft down to where Peter Stringer is warming up on the sideline. (Peter Stringer warms up for almost the entire duration of the match. He isn’t called on to the pitch until 15 minutes from the end.)
As the crowd returns to its seats after half-time the trumpet player is giving us the theme from the Hovis ad. We feel a bit mournful, what with the smoke curling from the chimneys of the small houses of Limerick, and the scoreline. But then, in a surprise development, the trumpeter plays Brand New Keyby Melanie – the quintessential girlie song, so lively and light. At 4.50 the mist starts to roll in. The trumpet player gives us Brand New Keyagain. At five o'clock Stringer comes on. And Donncha O'Callaghan, looking annoyed, I was told. The trumpet player plays Brand New Keyfor a third time. Then it's back to Morricone.
In the end Munster won. A small shoal of little boys ran on to the pitch and passed a rugby ball skilfully between them. It was a lovely day: an Irish fiesta. I didn’t understand the significance of Munster becoming the red button option on Sky television (no longer first choice) until I got home.
Sometimes reality comes as a horrible shock.