A place that's pure Munster

Declan Kidney, Paul O'Connell and Anthony Foley explain to Gerry Thornleywhy the old ground is such a special place

It's nothing special. On a cold, damp, blustery, wintry midweek day it looks in desperate need of more than a lick of paint. Even the main stand is crudely basic and almost as exposed to the elements as anywhere else. More than most grounds in Europe, Thomond Park has the air of a blast from the past. But, of course, that is part of its allure.

And then there's Saturdays. A debt is due to RTÉ here, for initially inserting Munster's Heineken European Cup games on the 5.30ish Saturday slot so as to accommodate their Premiership coverage, which thankfully Sky have continued.

It allows more time for the supporters to, eh, get in the mood while thousands still dutifully take their positions alongside the entrance to the dressingroom for the customary roar when the players briefly adjourn between warm-up and kick-off.

Whereupon they return, the skies darken and the mist invariably rolls in - or do the Brains Trust have someone light a fire nearby? Tribes going to war. Few grounds - ironically, Leicester's would be another exception - have the crowds standing and virtually breathing onto the pitch. It all helps to create a uniquely foreboding atmosphere, especially for away sides.

There's Giants Stadium, Wembley, Lansdowne Road, Croke Park and countless other stadiums which have been scenes to various Irish sporting tales, be they agonising or ecstatic. But come 5.30pm on certain European Cup Saturdays, there's nowhere quite like Thomond Park.

Come 5.30pm, Paul O'Connell will have the honour of leading Munster out at their citadel as it currently exists for the last time.

"It's nothing spectacular to look at," he admits. "It's pure Munster, I suppose really, when you look at it, at the moment. There's no massive stadium, the same as the team, there's no real stars in the team. It's just a big lump of concrete but on a Saturday evening it's a lot different."

TODAY IS THE last of these occasions, as we know them. By next November, when the European Cup returns, Thomond Park will have undergone its redevelopment, and for all its bearpit mystique, not before time. This team, this era of Munster rugby, deserves the legacy of an upgraded and expanded Thomond Park.

Like Lansdowne Road, and all other stadium development under the IRFU's auspices, it should have been done years ago. Munster, and Irish, rugby comes nowhere close to reaching out to the live public audience it should have, and despite the effectiveness of their central contracting system, for that the union stand indicted.

Some things will remain sacred and the pitch, the very turf, will remain the same. Regarding the rest of it, an English colleague, Hugh Godwin of the Independent, wrote during the week, Thomond's fortress-like setting and their history in this fortress city demand the newly designed ground should be installed with ramparts and a moat. This is a team of the people, for the people and by the people.

As O'Connell says, "I suppose since professional rugby came in, a lot of people play rugby now away from home, and not representing where they come from, whereas for Munster, Thomond Park and Musgrave Park has given us the chance to play for where we're from and who we represent, and I think it makes you a better player."

O'Connell's playing memories date back to scoring a hat-trick for Ard Scoil Rís against St Clement's in a Munster Schools' Junior Cup match, albeit for a total yardage of about three, he reckons. "They were all pick-ups and dives." From schoolboy player to fan, O'Connell famously scaled the walls to gain access to Thomond Park for the quarter-final win over Biarritz in 2001. He paid in to The Miracle Match, or at any rate had a ticket, against Gloucester two seasons later. "I was injured at the time, I was very down, I was thinking we were out of the competition and next minute the boys pulled out this amazing performance, and by the time my injury came around we were still in the competition. That was a great day. Gloucester. Sale. There's been a lot of great days here."

The possibility of a bigger capacity and, perhaps, a less-intense demand for tickets would be welcome. "It's probably one of the most stressful parts of the job at the moment. I think it's brilliant for us. It's where I think Munster and Irish rugby is going, to have a stadium like that, and it'll be brilliant for the city of Limerick and brilliant for the province."

Loath as they are to become embroiled in the emotional backdrop to this mini-farewell of sorts, or set themselves up even more for the hungry Tigers, the constant questioning, and the recurring topic, demanded they reluctantly give the subject some thought, even the reticent Declan Kidney. The Munster coach, by comparison, struggles to recall his first playing experience. "They didn't allow 12-year-old Cork boys to play in Thomond Park, you had to be a bit older."

Against that, he must be in the exception to the ever-increasing 250,000 who did witness the famous 12-0 win over the All Blacks on October 31st, 1978. "I'd be one of the ones to admit it, and I know it's wrong, but it was always a thing I said to my own father that the only thing he ever did wrong to me was that he wouldn't let me go to the All Blacks match. He said I had to go to a lecture instead. He probably thought they (Munster) were going to win as well, so he wanted a day out. I've had some great days here, coming up playing here with the school and coaching schools teams. Yeah, it's very special, isn't it? But we can't get into that, because if we do . . . that's the thing we learnt from other (the first two losing) finals, we have to detach ourselves from that. That's an awkward question, don't be asking me questions like that."

We persisted, and Kidney relented some more when asked if there would be a certain sentiment attached to today's game: "There is of course. It's hugely special for us. This match was always going to be special, but that just adds so much to it. But we've a job to do, and we must get ourselves right, so that's part and parcel of this job, that sometimes you have to park that and try not to let feelings get in the way. We had to learn that from previous finals, and try not to get wrapped up in the occasion."

It says everything about the way the professional generation of Munster players have added to Thomond Park's lustre that an unbroken 26-match winning run in the 12 years of this competition outstrips anything from the past. No one has played in more of those games than Anthony Foley, who invariably led from the front in many of the victories before missing the last two. Aside from the gluttonous diet of matches on a European Cup weekend, it also gave him a fresh perspective on the old ground.

What makes it so special? "It's hard to say. You look at it now (last Tuesday), it's just like anywhere else and it's taken a facelift since I first seen it; when I was here as a young fella with the wooden stand, grass embankments and small, eight or nine steps at the far side. It's changed an awful lot and it's going to change some more, but what makes a ground or a stadium are the people in it. Obviously the fans and the teams appreciate each other. It also helps when you play at 5.15 or whatever time it is, and the floodlights are on and the mist rolls in. It can become a very haunting venue."

As a son of a famous Munster man, Brendan Foley, he admits he had the run of the place, and that privileged status meant he was often running around the ground, waiting to get out on the pitch for a kickabout and runabout with his mates at half-time or after the full-time whistle.

"You'd be playing full length of the pitch, three versus three, at five or six years of age," he recounts with a chuckle. Foley often had access to the changing-room before or after games as well. ". . . the dust used to come off the ceiling. If there was any noise at all in the stands it would creep down into the changing-rooms. I'd say Health and Safety would have a lot to say about it now."

Like Kidney, Foley also admits he wasn't allowed attend the win over the All Blacks. "Too big a crowd," was his mother's reasoning. Nevertheless, young Foley was primarily permitted to hang out with his dad on match days in a reverse baby-sitting role: "I was sent to make sure he was sent home at a reasonable hour, but that never happened."

He thinks his first game there was a Munster Schools Junior Cup first-round win, just, over Glenstal. An unhappier memory was trying his guts out - he was the talismanic figure in their senior team - in a losing final at Thomond Park against a Pres Cork team coached by Kidney, with Brian O'Meara at scrumhalf.

Fast forward to the autumn of 1995 and a late Pat Murray try secured a 17-13 win over Swansea in Munster's debut in the European Cup: "The grass embankments were still there. The terraces hadn't even been built. It was a step into the unknown and you look back to the way we used to train back then and it's poles apart."

Out of little acorns and all of that. Who could have thought it would be the start of such a beautiful relationship? The following season, the 49-22 rout of Wasps set something of a special tone all of its own for the visit of English teams, continued with the 23-16 victory over Harlequins and the prodigal Keith Wood another year on even when Munster had nothing tangible to play for. Of course Munster always had everything to play for in the cup at Thomond, yet without that late try against Swansea, and another by John Lacey to secure a 17-15 win over Bourgoin two seasons later, the unbeaten record and much of Thomond's mystique would never have materialised. "We've had a few close calls along the way. You remember the Saracens one?" asks Foley.

How could we forget that 31-30 epic in the 1999-2000 season, match six in the sequence and perhaps Munster's greatest Houdiniesque escape. "They scored under the posts and we had to come back immediately." Keith Wood plunged over and Ronan O'Gara had to land an angled conversion high off the post. "It went over anyway," laughs Foley.

"Games like that I'd love to watch again. I often wonder would the Munster Branch ever bring out the DVDs of them. I remember seeing Nicole Langford, I think it was, had a camcorder on for the crowd's reaction when Woody scored, and I believe it looks completely different from the TV cameras. It's certainly a lot different when you're out on the pitch."

All sentiment aside, Foley admits, "We need a ground that can hold 24,000, 26,000. Now, how many times will that be filled in a year? Maybe you could count them on the fingers of one hand, maybe two."

More likely two nowadays.

"But my old hobby horse," adds Foley, perhaps with the thought of a "home" quarter-final across channel in mind. "Why do we need to keep redeveloping stadiums when other stadiums in the area can hold big crowds? If it came down to economics it wouldn't happen, and it wouldn't happen in any other country. If you think of Toulouse and other municipal stadiums that the council own and everyone is given access to use them. I'm a GAA person too and I can understand their viewpoint, but rather than sending Irish teams to play in stadiums abroad, let's keep it all at home, let's develop our stars at home and let's keep our money in the country."

Throughout the last 11 years, many a visiting foreign coach or club owner, such as Nigel Wray, has been moved by the innate fervour of the atmosphere, without recourse to pop bands, pom-pom girls or a deafening din from the PA system and some over-the-top announcer. Coupled with this, of course, has been the customary silence afforded visiting goalkickers. Sporting but partisan - it's hard to think of any other rugby ground where the umbilical cord between team and crowd is so palpable.

"I suppose it's the knowledge they have of the game," says Foley. "They know when you need a kick up the backside or when you need that lift. I think there are a lot of good rugby people who go and watch the games, and they like to get involved. Obviously now they know what the advantage of playing at home is, and they try and bring everything they have to the game as well.

"Plus they're your neighbours you're going to meet. I remember my old man saying that about the New Zealand game. He was saying you had to go out and perform to your best. It was only 80 minutes out on the pitch but you had to live with these people for the rest of your lives, and they're the people you're going to meet or go to work with, so they'll all have their say."

Yet, as critical as anything in the European Cup's most remarkable home rule has been the utmost respect Munster have afforded all visiting sides. Confident yes, arrogant never, and that will never have been more pronounced than for today's visit of the two-time champions.

"You look at the stature of their players," begins Foley,"you look at the ability in their side, the experience, where they've gone and won in the past, what they've done in this competition in the past, that this is a side coming here with something to play for. They have to win to get out of their group. It's going to be a massive, massive occasion. It should be feisty."

Allied to that, of course, is the pride they take in their Thomond exploits, and the fear they might ever lose the record on their watch, a useful motivational tool according to Foley et al. "There's nothing wrong with a bit of fear," he says. "It keeps you on your toes. I suppose the one time it was put up to us was the Gloucester game here. We had to win by 27 points and four tries to go through. BBC were interviewing me and asking me what means more to me. They go hand in hand. You don't want to lose that record but at the weekend you just want to win the game as well. We just want to keep winning here in Thomond Park."

1995-96: 17-3 v Swansea.

1996-97: 49-22 v Wasps.

1997-98: 17-15 v Bourgoin; 23-16 v NEC Harlequins.

1998-99: all homes games were played at Musgrave Park.

1999-00: 32-10 v Pontypridd; 31-30 v Saracens; (quarter-final) 27-10 v Stade Français.

2000-01: 26-18 v Newport; 31-9 v Bath; (quarter-final) 38-29 v Biarritz.

2001-02: 28-23 v Castres; 51-17 v Harlequins.

2002-03: 30-21 v Perpignan; 33-6 v Gloucester.

2003-04: 51-0 v Treviso; 35-14 v Gloucester; 26-3 v Bourgoin; (quarter-final) 37-32 v Stade Français.

2004-05: 15-9 v NEC Harlequins; 36-8 v Castres; 20-10 v Ospreys.

2005-06: 42-16 v Castres; 30-18 v Newport Gwent Dragons; 31-9 v Sale Sharks.

2006-07: 41-23 v Bourgoin; 32-18 v Cardiff.