Munster's success story is a shared one

On Rugby: Destiny didn't call them, and justice had nothing to do with it, yet will we ever again witness a team ultimately deserving a triumph as much as Munster did last Saturday?

Certainly, no team has ever deserved to win the Heineken European Cup more than Munster, and it's hard to find an equivalent holy grail in any other team sport.

Somehow it doesn't quite rankle as much as it used to that the heavens opened and dampened their odyssey of 2000 (or even that they ran into a slightly superior force on the day in 2002), or that Mick Galwey, Peter Clohessy, Keith Wood and co, not to mention Alan Gaffney, John Langford, Dominic Crotty and others, didn't ride off into the sunset with that rarity in the history of Irish rugby, a winners' medal in a major competition.

For sure, it's a terrible shame the status of Galwey, Clohessy and Wood as "liginds" was not properly crowned at the turn of the millennium, and that they weren't a more tangible part of the triumph when it ultimately arrived.

And yet they were, for no one contributed to the Magnificent Obsession more than Galwey.

Would there have been anything like 60,000 Munster supporters in the Millennium Stadium if they had won the cup in 2000 and/or 2002? Would the words holy grail, Magnificent Obsession et al have become part of the story and our vocabulary?

Most likely not, and those heartbreaks, along with Lille, Lansdowne Road, Toulouse and San Sebastien, undoubtedly made last Saturday all the sweeter, all the more memorable.

In a curious way, therefore, aren't Munster better off for having had those near misses and maintained their incredibly resilient and rescourceful journey, by comparison to Ulster, who won it in 1999 but haven't reached the quarter-finals since?

In a roundabout way, of course, Munster owe a small debt to the other provinces. For this writer, a starting point of sorts in the search for their holy grail was actually 1999, when they reacted angrily and bitterly to a quarter-final defeat away to Colomiers in a winnable match. Suddenly, winning in France, or even winning this competition, didn't seem such a fanciful notion, all the more so when Ulster beat Colomiers in the final on that memorable day in Lansdowne Road.

And it should be remembered the first big scalp in either European competition was Connacht's away win against Northampton two seasons before on their march to the Challenge Cup quarter-finals.

Of course, it was Munster's march to Twickenham in 2000, all the more so after the pool wins away to Colomiers and Saracens in Wood's prodigal return to the province, which first roused the Red Army.

And on finally reaching Saturday's promised land, perhaps they owed a small debt to Leinster.

It was Leinster, after all, who had kept Bath's late rally at bay in the final Sunday of the pool stages, and by denying the English team a bonus point ensured Munster were at home in the quarter-finals. The favours didn't stop there, for Leinster possibly did Munster and others a favour by releasing Toulouse's hold on the competition with their stunning success there in the quarter-finals, for sheer daring perhaps still the performance of the tournament.

It also meant Leinster stood in Munster's way at the semi-final stage, and nothing could have galvanised Anthony Foley's team more than the sight of their Irish rivals. In any event, it is right and fitting so many Irish people extracted almost as much joy from Munster's success as the people of those six counties.

Munster have always been a team easy to identify with, and not just in Ireland, for judging by the praise lavished on them in the English media yesterday (even extending to the front pages of the Times and the Daily Telegraph) Munster's crusade struck a cord with millions.

And why not? In all the years we've watched them, they've never had their spirit broken, they've never chucked in the towel, they've always stood up and fought until the end. As individuals, none of them seem to have changed, or become in any way cocky. They remain grounded, humble human beings, and this manifests itself in the indisputable honesty of their efforts and performances.

It also showed the importance of having a head coach and coaching staff who are trusted and respected by their players. "Never go back" is a stock phrase applied to any coach returning to an old haunt. Declan Kidney would have had his sceptics down Munster way upon his return, not least after an opening defeat away to Sale.

True to form, nobody had ever before lost their opening match in the competition and gone on to win it. No one had thus ever won eight matches in a row in one campaign, and they had to, for another defeat would have ended the dream for another year.

Viewed in this light, it's difficult to understate the importance of this victory. Observing the mass invasion of red into Cardiff, watching the tears of joy at the full-time whistle on the pitch (and not only there), confirmed that unsurprisingly, it eclipsed the two recent Triple Crowns. Because it simply meant more.

In part, this is down to Munster's history in the competition, but also to the European Cup's status as the best rugby competition in the world. And Munster's belated success was also a timely story in the history of the cup. True, we'll never see Munster win it again for the first time, and perhaps we'll never see 60,000-plus of them in one ground unless they meet Calvisano in the final.

Perhaps, too, the Red Army will feel sated, yet the European Cup carries a mystique all of its own, not least in Munster, and their success has raised the stakes for everybody. Munster will begin next season as the champions of Europe. That sounds good. And the pride with which they'll start the campaign will be undeniable.