Sideline Cut: On weekends like this, it is always tempting to dream of what it must be like to be a Munster man. Irish by Birth, Munster By the Grace of God: isn't that how the famous Thomond Park banner reads? These heroic and monumental rugby weekends (and they are all heroic) are Munster's gift to civilisation. Although the forecast may be overcast and damp across the other three godforsaken green fields of Ireland, the gorgeous vales and mountains of magnificent Munster must be bathed in golden sunshine on the great and mighty weekends when the red shirts prepare to do battle on a rugby field for the honour and general betterment of Ireland as a whole.
Nearly all Munster men of my acquaintance - and I have friends in all the Munster boroughs other than Tipperary, Cork and Waterford - are loyal and unflinching in their devotion to Munster rugby. On tremulous days like this, they like to rise early and stare for a long a time at the framed photograph of the 1978 team that beat the All-Blacks. They smile at the memory and enjoy a delicious cooked breakfast featuring the finest meat and dairy produce that Charleville and Roscrea has to offer. Then they iron their famous Munster shirts.
The Clare lad, a thoughtful, organised kind of fellow, wears a replica O'Gara jersey. The Kerry boy possesses an old Peter Clohessy shirt which he swears is an original, won after he engaged the fearsome Limerick prop in an arm wrestling contest late into the night when the entire province was celebrating some Munster rugby miracle or other. The Claw, of course, won the contest arms down but it all ended happily, with several thousand Munster fans linking arms and singing a rousing version of Seán South from Garryowen before diving buck naked into the Shannon to catch salmon bare handed, which they fried on the leafy banks as another perfect dawn broke over God's own province.
The mornings of Munster rugby days are sacred. Some times Munster rugby men like to stroll along the Shannon, stopping on O'Connell Bridge to hum a few heartfelt bars of Limerick, You're A Lady. Other times they might climb Carrantuohill or retreat into the mists of the Burren for an hour of solitude to consider if it truly is, as Wardy suggested, "a day for up-the-jumper stuff". Eventually they will meet up with the legions of other Munster rugby fans. They are easily recognisable by their handsome features, upright bearing, generous spirit and outstanding singing voices, which they employ to operatic effect as they await the opening of the gates of paradise.
Thomond Park holds 14,000 Munster people but it is not uncommon for several million to turn up at the park in the hope of getting in. It does not matter if they fail: being from Munster is a state of mind as much as anything else and they will happily make their way to one of Munster's bountiful hostelries to talk about the many great days gone and yet to come for Munster rugby. They are considerate and convivial hosts and like nothing better than to extend a warm Munster welcome to the poor visitors from Sale, from Gloucester, from Castres or from whatever helpless rugby town is in store for the Thomond experience.
Shortly after lunch, a dark cloud will descend over the revered rugby stadium, for Munster rugby weather must be dramatic and Biblical. Often, minutes before the Munster team takes the field, there will be a thunderous downpour but Munster rain is different, it is fresh and pure and revivifying. It is somehow manly. By this time, energy waves emanating from Thomond Park will have cast a spell across that unlucky corner of Ireland that is not Munster. Those of us who are not from Munster can but watch on in wonder. We try to replicate the experience, drinking piss water in some lonesome bar that does not possess a signed photograph of Gaillimh rising through the rain to claim an incredible lineout ball which set off another rumbling and inevitable Munster miracle.
We pretend we are drinking a fine Munster stout and that we are not trapped in some impoverished town outside the fabled land. We fall quiet when RTÉ's three wise men, George Hook, Brent Pope and Tom McGurk, appear on our television screens. Tom will be sporting his It's-Paris-circa-1975-and-I-have-just-stepped-out-of-a-John-Forsythe blockbuster rugby look, all raging pink ties and collegiate scarves and flowing trench coats.
Brent Pope will wear a sober, no nonsense suit but will shun the coat because he is a Kiwi and even though it is by now minus 10 and raining frogs across Thomond Park, Kiwis do not wear coats because they are hard as f***. And Hookie will be in a whole different place. Hookie will stare intensely into the dark Munster skies, drinking in the rain and shouting to make himself heard above the tempest of passion and expectation.
"THIS IS MAGGGGGNIFICENT," he will growl in a tone that, although canine and volcanic, is also authoritative and blessed with the sex appeal inherent to all Munster men. "THIS IS WHAT RRRRRUGBY FOOTBALL IS ALL ABOUT, TOM." And Tom will squint thoughtfully into the gale looking somewhat like Jerry Irons (the handsome film star who now lives in Munster) in The French Lieutenant's Woman.
"IT IS GRRREAT," he will agree. "NOTHING ON EARTH COMPARES TO THOMOND PARK." And we who are not from Munster will know that must be true. There are Roscommon men who have climbed Everest drunk, Fermanagh men who frolicked poolside with Marilyn Monroe and Longford men who managed to sweet talk their way onto the world's first Concorde flight who know that all their life's achievements are pointless because they are not and can not be from Munster. For the 80 minutes of the match, we watch on as the 15 warriors in red assert what Munster is all about. Sometimes they will need to win by eight tries or 15 drop goals or score a try which involves a couple of through-the-legs passes. Those handicaps are always overcome, however, and the match is duly won. Thomond, in case you weren't aware, is a Fortress.
That's what they say, anyhow. By five pm, Wardie is purring. On Radio One, Michael Corcoran is saying something that sounds like: AGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! Back in the RTÉ Thomond Box, George Hook looks a bit like Tony Soprano in one of his love-struck moments. He is so dishevelled, powerful and pulsing with energy and passion that he doesn't quite know how to manage. Sometimes you fear that in the heat of the moment he will take hold of Brent Pope and wrestle him to the ground DH Lawrence style. Tom McGurk looks solemn and beatific, like a man who has been given the job of anchoring the live television broadcast of Our Lady's Appearance at Knock rather than a rugby match.
The key moments of the game will be replayed with an appropriate soundtrack, something like Beethoven's Sixth Symphony. We will be assured that pride and passion are nurturing the rich soil of Munster as never before. We will be told there has never been a day, a match, a team or a place like this, like Munster. And we, the lame and the infirm and the great unwashed think to ourselves: "Lord, what is going to happen if they actually win the whole competition?"
