Bucketing down with passion

Her indoors thought they were mad, but then she doesn't really know what rugby means to Munster people. "They're crazy," she said, and there was no need for any further explanation. Of course they were. Anyone who would give up an afternoon's Christmas shopping, on the last Saturday before Santa Claus drops down the chimney, to stand in a monsoon on an uncovered terrace in Cork had to have their mental state called into question.

But wasn't it worth it? Of course it was. Even Jim Sherwin, the match commentator on Network 2 who wasn't told that the job specifications would include imitating a drowned rat in the course of a match, had to agree that enduring such misery was a small price to pay to be present to witness Munster doing what they do best in the rain. Winning, again.

Indeed, Sherwin told us it was "a minor miracle" at all that they were able to bring us televised footage of the Munster-Colomiers game, such were the atrocious conditions. "The rain is getting everywhere," he complained at one stage (with particular emphasis on "everywhere"), and our hearts went out to him.

The scene was set in the build-up to the game when presenter Tom McGuirk and analyst Brent Pope conducted their chat under a couple of umbrellas. "How will the French feel," asked McGuirk, "with Christmas coming, and the Visa cards to come in?" Instead of telling us what the visitors had bought on their shopping trip to the real capital, Pope decided to concentrate on the rugby. "They're notoriously bad travellers," said the Kiwi, "I'd be very surprised if Munster don't win."

Sherwin's co-commentator, Ralph Keyes, knows a thing or two about facing the French and predicted it was "a day to avoid mistakes" given the "pretty awful afternoon". In fact, when the cameras switched to the Colomiers reserve bench, it looked as if they were equipped for an ascent on Mount Everest rather than a trip to Musgrave Park. By the game's end, it seemed that maybe a hike up the Himalayas would have been easier.

Not that it started out too well for the home team. Patrick Martinez's early try hinted that maybe they weren't the bad travellers that we'd been led to expect. But, once Keith Wood and his forwards got stuck in, the real outcome was never in too much doubt.

Before the match, McGuirk reminded us that we had been talking all too recently of holding a wake for Irish rugby after the national team's performances in the World Cup, but that the "fire and passion" of Munster in the European Cup had made a nonsense of such talk.

Nobody epitomises that Munster spirit as much as Wood and, throughout the match, the commentators had their own way of recognising him.

"The man himself," remarked Keyes.

"Woody," said Sherwin.

And Pope, with a smile, simply referred to him as "the man with the right sort of haircut for this kind of weather".

No matter what description was used, we all knew who they were going on about - and, on the pitch, Wood's two-try haul was fitting reward for his general contribution.

By the end, Sherwin was wishing referee Antonio Lombardi - who wouldn't be accustomed to such conditions in Italy - would just blow the final whistle. It should be pointed out that, by this time, Sherwin's television monitors had had enough of the water that was getting "everywhere" and had gone blank and that the rain-sodden commentator was recording the event for posterity with his eyes and no technical back-up.

If rugby is one sport that doesn't halt for a Christmas break, another is the bizarre world of Sumo wrestling.

Eurosport brought us pictures during the week of the Grand Sumo Tournament from Fukuoka in Japan. Whatever about the weather the rugby players (and commentators) had to endure in Musgrave Park, it really was a different world in the Far East where men who have never heard of Weight Watchers donned what looked like nappies to charge at each other in a tiny ring - called a dohyo - with all the grace of elephants in a china shop.

But this is serious business, and the capacity crowd supported their favourite rikishi with as much passion as a Clare hurling supporter in Thurles on a Munster Final Sunday.

With exotic names likes Takanohana and Minatofuja and Kotoyu to trip off his tongue, commentator Sid Hawkman did a marvellous job of explaining the unexplainable to the uninitiated and, on Friday night, the best wine was definitely kept to the end when Terao, a 36-year-old veteran, who weighed over 16 st less than his opponent, Musashimuru, tossed the bigger man over the straw rice bag and out of the ring.

We saw the giant, aka Musashimuru, being escorted back to the dressing-room by a ring of minders and he looked as if he was about to burst into tears while, behind him, the crowd went mad and tossed their seat cushions into the air. It only served to demonstrate that, no matter the occasion or the venue, sport manages to generate passion like no other activity.

Not that all sport is about passion. This is a strange time of the year for the television stations with many sports going into a hiatus - but Sky Sports have to maintain wall-to-wall coverage of something and so it was that we were treated to the delights of the Monster Truck Rally from the New Orleans Superbowl during the week when the likes of "Grave Digger" and "Samson" raced over humps and around corners in their supercharged machines. Give me Musgrave Park on a miserable, wet Saturday afternoon any day.