All tense in Red zone? You must be joking

On a visit to Limerick Keith Duggan gets a taste of Munster's legendary sense of fun and family

David Wallace was halfway through soberly pondering another aspect of The Semi-Final when he was interrupted by a figure in a hooded sweatshirt barracking him from the back of the room. The Limerick flanker is celebrated for being a cool customer, but he was momentarily flummoxed as the mystery heckler strolled nonchalantly through the Thomond Park clubhouse.

Then came the cheeky, sideways glance from Ronan O'Gara and Wallace broke into helpless guffaws along with his Ireland team-mate Paul O'Connell. Even Shaun Payne, the ultra-courteous South African, was unable to stifle a fit of the giggles as forwards coach Jim Williams smiled like he had seen it all before.

The episode was the only unrehearsed part of the day but it seemed to bear out all the popular myths about Munster being different, being one happy family.

Most clubs enter the Heineken European Cup trading on their skills as motivated professionals. Munster have acquired a mystique for being something deeper: the team as conduit for the soul and personality of a people. Or, to put it another way, a bunch of local lads who know how to laugh.

"That has always been the way in Munster," grinned O'Connell. "Even back in the day when they would just meet up for a few games in a season. It's a massive part of our psyche and you do feel as though you're playing for your best friends, and that kind of drives you on.

"We've been able to rest up a bit this week because of the huge effort guys put in early on in the year. You don't get fit in a week, so Declan (Kidney) was saying, and it's great to reach this point knowing that the guy beside you has put in the work."

The stylistic and cultural differences between Leinster and Munster have meant Sunday's match has taken an unusual hold on the popular imagination. The GAA's decision to move its league football showdown from the capital was an acknowledgement of that.

Leinster versus Munster has been reduced to country against town, Barry's tea against café latte, ale against champagne. Munster are perceived as being about blood and thunder and apocalyptic skies, trundling around rugby fields in one, indistinguishable red mass. Leinster, though, are a bunch of amorous Frenchmen with south Dublin accents pirouetting around the field at 100 miles an hour, all the better to showcase their Byronesque hairdos.

At least that is how the stereotypes go. The truth is different. The truth is most of these players know each other from schools, from clubs, from provinces, from country. Ireland's rugby road network is small. That said the players have managed to give each other a wide berth of late.

"There hasn't been much communication, no texting or anything," says O'Connell. "Least not from me. We are probably wary of each other at this stage and we're all bound to change a few things when it comes to the game. We've played each other loads of times and you think you know a team inside out but it never works out that way."

As Payne says, "you cannot take any precedents into cup rugby, you just take the game as it comes."

The intriguing part of this semi-final lies in the fact that the familiarity and knowledge the Irish provinces share mean the outcome is more likely to be decided by an unlikely source.

Munster have been a key asset of the Heineken European Cup since its inception, an indomitable and charismatic force whose quest for glory has become such a cause that tomorrow's game seems particularly treacherous.

For all Leinster's disappointments, it would be a typically Irish story if they managed to wipe Munster's eye and then win the damn thing outright just for good measure. It is a thought the Munster boys have to keep buried. The whole focus of their week has been about routine, as Wallace indicated when talking about the threat presented by Leinster's quicksilver outhalf Felipe Contepomi.

"Yeah, he's a great ball carrier and you have to have three sets of eyes on him always. But the most important thing is that we don't do anything differently on the weekend, that we stick to our system and have faith that it will work. You can't change things for a specific player."

The key to Munster's consistent ability to make it to the glamorous phases of the European Cup has been belief in what Munster rugby is about. Payne has been playing fullback for Munster for three years and although accustomed to the prevailing rugby spirit, he will never fully get used to it.

"Mate, you can't help but buy into it," he says chirpily. "I live in a little village, Killaloe, and everyone wants to talk rugby the whole time. And I personally really enjoy it. And Anthony is on the other side of the bridge so it heightens the rivalry. The level of support for Munster has been outstanding for the three seasons I have been here.

"Thomond was a new experience. I think our level of play has progressed with each season as well. I think that the intensity of the rivalry is greater than in South Africa. We might have played in front of more spectators out there, but the whole build-up is far more intense and intimate than what I have experienced down in South Africa. The relationship between fans and players is much closer."

Williams nods in agreement. The prodigiously powerful number six formed the heart of the Munster pack during the 2002 season, when they ran Leicester to the last minute in a gripping final in Cardiff, which was spoiled when Neil Back got away with fouling the ball as the Munster pack rumbled toward the try line. It was a bitter disappointment and remains so but Williams, on the coaching staff now, is still in the honeymoon phase of his relationship with the province.

"I think playing in a Super 12 final in 2001 and then playing against Leicester the following season was a jump from 35,000 in Canberra to 70,000 or so in the Millennium Stadium. There is no comparison. The support for the game here is phenomenal.

"And I think guys appreciate what they get here in Munster. Every match has been hard to watch from the sideline but it's not hard to coach guys who are well motivated and willing to learn and this is probably one of the best places imaginable to start coaching. You want to make your own identity as a coach and then get the players in the right condition. And I have been working on that as hard as I can. When I came here, Paul was just starting out with the Munster team. Donncha (O'Callaghan) and Denis Leamy were coming through. And to see those players go on to play for Ireland and become world-class players is fabulous to see."

O'Connell talked of his formative experiences with Munster - his breakthrough was marked with a famous win against Perpignan - as "kind of armchair days, when you were just in the team and just had to look after yourself."

Now, the flame-haired lock has not only become one of the leading exponents of his position in the game but is also a compelling presence on the field, talkative and provocative and always, it seems, in the television frame during the telling phases of play.

"When you get more seniority, then maybe the pressure is greater. As you get older, the more nervous you get," he admits, "because you reach a stage where you realise the team has a chance of winning every game it plays if we perform. And that brings its own nerves."

Munster broke an uncharacteristic three-game losing streak in the Celtic League by stinging poor Edinburgh for six tries last week.

"You have to believe you will come out of those slumps," he reasons. "We always talk about doing the basics and not changing because one or two results don't go your way and luckily that is what happened at the weekend."

Clearly, those losses will be utterly forgotten should Munster prevail in Dublin tomorrow. Nobody has quite articulated it, but this is destined to be one of those occasions that linger in the mind for years afterwards.

"For neutrals, it is like a fireworks display to end what was a very satisfying Triple Crown season for Ireland. It means the country will have one province in the European final at least. In the southwest, that is no consolation. It must be Red or dead. It is as big a game as Munster has known.

"This part of the week I don't enjoy," says Payne. "Everyone is a bit tense and the nerves are there and for three or four days before, the game is on your mind. I just want to get out there."

Not too long to wait now.