Munster stand and fight

The day demanded it, indeed the crowd demanded it, because those final, pulsating 20 minutes had been as good as rugby - nay as good as sport - could get.

The dying moments of injury time. Keith Wood had just crashed over for a try to bring the home boys to within a point of Saracens, who just minutes before had cut the Thomond Park horde to the quick with a classy try of their own.

Now the out-half was on his own, standing over a kick that would seal one of the great victories in Munster's already bejewelled history.

Ironically, Ronan O'Gara didn't need to land his matchwinning conversion for Munster to reach the Heineken Cup quarter-finals.

With Munster trailing 30-29 and the sides level on aggregate over their two meetings, Munster were assured of finishing above Saracens in the final pecking order by virtue of outscoring them by seven tries to six in the two clashes. The Munster brains trust had already worked that out there and then. You'd think they'd have told the poor fella. Of course, the script demanded that O'Gara hold his nerve and land the kick anyway, and shaving the upright just added a dramatic finale to another titanic struggle and ensured the game of folklore status, even by Munster's rich standards.

The conversion not only preserved Munster's four-year unbeaten record at Thomond Park, and 12-game unbeaten sequence this season, it also assured them of a home quarter-final.

With Montferrand losing at Cardiff, Munster's 10 points guarantees them a top four ranking and a home tie in the last eight. But these are almost incidental when set against the kick which faced O'Gara.

"I was half hoping we wouldn't get a try in the first place," he said grinning. "There were 15,014 hoping for a try and I was thinking `knock it on'.

"I actually wasn't that nervous. I don't know, I was in a weird mood today," said O'Gara shaking his bandaged head. "I had the flu all week. I got it on Wednesday and was feeling lousy again today. I couldn't get it together in the warm-up.

"In the first half I was slow getting into my stride. I don't know what the turnaround was really, it's a strange game mentally, but then I knew the kicks were going to go over. I was quite confident of getting it.

"It's great, but it could so easily have gone like Humphreys against France. That thought cropped into my head as I put the ball down. `What have I got myself into here?' You're the hero or you're the villain. So far I've got two out of two, but one day I'm going to be on the other side of the fence. "Today Limerick was on my side and the gods above were looking down on me. Jesus, there's a good story for you there now lads."

One of Munster's first notable benchmarks in this phenomenal season was a first win in 20 years away to Ulster last September 4th. That night, in a pub singsong in Belfast, the rendition by the new manager, Brian O'Brien, of Stand Up and Fight so moved the Munstermen that it has become their anthem of the season.

It seemed particularly fitting, "toe to toe", "until the final bell" and all that, as it bellowed out of the dressing-room and a flying champagne cork interrupted Keith Wood's almost routine post-match press conference.

"I know there's shampoo being corked in there, but I think that's champagne of relief as much as celebration. We're a very sophisticated lot down here, we like to drink champagne for any particular reason. We haven't won anything yet, but thank God we're out of the group. "In a funny way, winning your first four creates a lot of pressure, because you think what a kick in the teeth it would be to miss out if you lost your last two.

"To be honest I owed it to the lads," the great balded one said of his try, "because I made a mess of the previous one. I got handed off when I shouldn't have for their last try and I missed a tackle, so I owed them one.

"He's only a slip of a lad but he's made of stern stuff," Wood said of O'Gara, but of the conversion Wood smiled and sheepishly admitted: "I have to admit to not looking. I was looking at a load of people down the other end, and when I saw the smiles on their faces I was happy."

Even the quarter-final will do well to better this, but it couldn't have a better setting than Thomond. "Days are rare in rugby when you get a ground full of absolutely manic supporters," said Wood. "It's different when you're on the opposition line and you're attacking, but when you're on your own line deep in doodoo, and suddenly there's 15,000 people shouting `Munster', Jesus, you get out of there pretty quickly. "You've got somebody else pushing behind you. That's great. A big day for rugby in this particular region."

It was hard not to feel some sympathy for this Saracens outfit as a stunned Darragh O'Mahony and Paul Wallace, forlornly waiting for a Munster team who would long be saluting the crowd, stared blankly at the deck.

Nigel Wray, the Saracens owner, took it on the chin and even with some style. "One kick at Vicarage Road, one inch. One kick here, another inch. A sliver of cigarette paper separated the sides. Great game.

"It was a wonderful crowd. Personally I think we can learn an awful lot from the atmosphere. I thought the old-fashioned courtesy afforded the kickers was wonderful. That's exactly what you want for a family game. "So, not pleased to have lost, but great occasion, Munster are a damned good side, and great place to come."