Time for fall guys to stand up and be counted

THE GOOD people of Connacht and Ulster have become refugees in the hurricane caused by this rugby game. The forgotten provinces need guidance. Big Ian, take to the pulpit! And where you gone Pee Flynn; a province turns its lonely eyes to you. Munster versus Leinster has become inescapable and has been deemed more than just a rugby match; it is a clash of two cultures and if you are not on one side, then you must be on the other.

Those belonging to other two quarters of Ireland can shut up and listen – but then there is nothing new there. Ireland is about Two Tribes and today is their day of days. And to those of us who are impartial in all of this, it seems as if the Leinster crowd ought to be feeling pretty unhappy about their role in this national rivalry.

On the face of it, Munster versus Leinster is a potentially thrilling rugby game that should settle the argument about the supreme force in Irish rugby this season. But what will happen on the field is merely a sporting metaphor for the perpetual struggle between two ways of Irish life. Munster versus Leinster is not just – or perhaps not even – about rugby.

It is about choices and values and about Who You Are: Country or City, West or East, Wranglers or Levis, Copper Face Jacks or Lily’s Bordello, shirt tucked in or hanging loose, red-meat-lover or vegetarian, Jackie Healy Rae or David Norris, porridge or muesli, cute hoor or cute guy, Doc Marten’s or Italian loafers, heart or head, hard or soft.

At least those are the messages that have been coming across in the profusion of coverage of the game on the Irish airwaves and television over the past couple of days. Munster rugby has been as successful as the Barack Obama machine at subliminally spreading its message among its people.

Quite how or when the citizens of Kerry, Cork, Tipperary, Clare and Waterford began to believe in the cult of Munster is probably impossible to pinpoint. The attraction was made easy by the fact that Munster could offer them a strong and charismatic team with a flair for producing thrilling victories. But it was more than that. The fabled days when George Hook and Tom McGurk would stand on the gantry overlooking a misty Thomond Park contributed to the Munster mythology.

It was always January and always Saturday and always freezing, the lights were just beginning to twinkle over Limerick city, the sky was West-of-Ireland epic and Hookie would hold us spellbound with his Munster incantations, raising his hands aloft and delivering streams of consciousness that were half rugby-analysis and half prayers of thanks to his people. It was a bit like watching Chief Sitting Bull in the midst of a rain dance.

Or maybe not. But Munster fans were always pretty clear about how they liked their rugby. They liked it raw and loud and medieval. They enjoyed clocking up what rugby men insist on calling “the hard yards.”

They liked their victories to resemble 80-minute brawls, with the rugby ball on view about once every 15 minutes, except when Ronan O’Gara sent a penalty over from a quarter of a mile downfield. They tolerated flashy tries, but preferred the kind that involved someone like Peter Clohessy or the ‘Bull’ John Hayes ploughing through a perfumed French fullback from three yards out and belly-flopping over the line, seconds before the entire red pack landed on him.

A few stitches and head wounds acquired in the heat of battle were obligatory. They liked it when the boys trooped off the field in a cloud of steam, muddied from head to toe and invincible to the last. Soon, a profile of the Munster fans was developed. They were cheerful, good-natured types, strong as oxes, carelessly handsome and not at all vain.

They liked to travel in numbers of 15,000 or more, bringing good cheer, irreverent wit, plenty of spending power and a frightening store of Irish ballads, which they would sing en masse in over-populated hotel lobbies until dawn broke over places like Toulouse, London, Perpignan, Cardiff and Gloucester.

They were generous, upstanding, went to Mass on Sunday, but were utterly unscrupulous and ingenious in the practice of securing tickets for big games. They had the sense that they were born lucky and Munster winning epic, nerve-wracking cup matches became a matter of manifest destiny.

They would celebrate their heroes with the kind of monster meetings which reminded old men of the days of Daniel O’Connell and by writing plays and other memoirs. After the team won the European Cup in 2006 and again last year, it was clear that Munster had won a special place in the hearts of the nation. Munster had become rugby’s representatives of the better qualities of the Irish nature.

And all this was very well if you happened to be from anywhere but Leinster. Because everything Munster stood for was, by inference, everything that Leinster did not.

Somehow, Leinster have become the fall guys in this story. And more than that, the blame has been placed not so much on the team as on the crowd that follows them.

The Leinster identity is more delicate and complex than that of Munster. Part of the problem was that, for a couple of seasons, the only tries Leinster seemed capable of scoring were, in the words of Derek Zoolander, really, really good looking. They involved incredibly fast and intricate passes and stunning solo runs that facilitated great slow-motion replays, gritted teeth, flowing locks and moans of genuine ecstasy from match commentators Ryle Nugent and Tony Ward.

The best Leinster tries were glorious feats that seemed to marry the highest triumphs of mathematics, rugby and Vidal Sassoon. It didn’t seem right that Leinster’s tries were worth a mere seven points: the ice-skating scoring system, where judges could hold up cards for perfect tens would have been fairer.

And perhaps that was why Munster folks came to believe the joke was on Leinster. No matter how beautifully they played it, they could always be cudgelled and caught. And their fans would always be out-shouted. The word on the street is the Leinster fan is by now a cowed fellow; a suave mover to Kanye West perhaps, but in matters rugby meek and polite and, deep down, kind of scared of his hearty cousin from Munster.

Today, the Munster Nation will swagger into the capital like they own the place. They have probably earned that privilege. They will be confident and good- humoured and will go berserk for the duration of the game. They will expect their Leinster rivals to look stylish, smile a lot, enjoy the day out and accept the result when they are beaten.

That has been the way of things down the years. Soon or later, the Leinster guys are going to crack. There’s only take so much Munster Mania they can take.

The rebellion could begin today.

In the words of a favourite Munster ballad: You Gotta Fight For Your Right To Party.