LockerRoom: Now even though the trigger finger is a little itchy we're not here to shoot holes in the Heineken Cup. Nope. We come in peace. We mean no harm. Also we appreciate that for the men and women working in the coalmines and ironworks and assembly lines of Limerick the cup is a fantastic escape from the grey drudgery of everyday life. That alone makes Munster "different".

We understand too that Munster rugby claims immunity from all ribaldry and ballyragging by virtue of the fact that in Limerick the salt-of-the-earth working man would rather watch rugby than watch his own back in a knife fight. We're not saying it justifies Pat Kenny poncing about in a Munster jersey on the Late Late but we're saying it's enough for us to resolve to leave matters be.

One thing though - and not a criticism, more a point of wonder. The Heineken Cup is a miracle of modern-day marketing and hype. Never have so many got so excited over a sports event with so little history attached. The trophy itself doesn't even have a name apart from that of its sponsor (only rugby could get away with that, surely).

It's only yesterday Young Munster were touchy about anyone calling their home patch the Killing Fields and Garryowen, their well-to-do neighbours, were slugging it out with them for the new-fangled All Ireland league and people used to injunct against any slagging of Limerick rugby because Young Munster were "sound like".

Now all of Munster has appropriated Young Munster's soundness and this cup is an immense annual distraction in Irish life. Somehow it has plugged itself into the small, cynicism-free part of the national imagination and become a certified holy grail. In doing so it has bypassed all the requirements of history or tradition.

Good luck to the Heino and all who sail in it. If there's a lesson for other sports this year it lies in the cup and its boldness. If the game itself is a decent product there is no need to be afraid of change. In a time of transition the adventures of Munster in the competition have added significantly to the aggregate interest in rugby in the province. Nobody pines for winter and the rites of the old Munster Senior Cup.

The cup has captured the zeitgeist of post-Celtic Tiger Ireland with its love of sensation and phenomenon. The fact the cup is a triumph of marketing in a way just adds to the triumph of the marketing. It's new and different and in many ways that's the point. It's like why we stopped drinking Harp although Heineken and Carlsberg tasted the same. We just thirsted after something new.

We got to thinking about all this as we sat resplendent above in the splendid press box in Semple Stadium gazing absentmindedly down at the intermediate match that preceded the main event yesterday. The continuity and history of Munster hurling always give one pause for thought and genuflection, and as we sat there we were tinkering with the idea about doing a column on Jimmy Smyth.

On June 5th 1955 Jimmy played on the Clare team which beat Cork down on the this very turf in Semple Stadium in this self-same Munster championship. Jimmy scored the last two points to put Christy Ring's team away.

(Jimmy's career, by the way, is proof in a way that there is nothing new under the sun when it comes to prodigies. He won three All-Ireland colleges titles with Flannan's, had five seasons as a Clare county minor and in the 1953 Munster championship scored 6-4 against Limerick. Imagine the fuss we'd have made in the papers.)

In Thurles yesterday though - despite the excellence of the preamble which was last year's All-Ireland semi-final, despite the long, musty history of clashes between Cork and Clare, despite the clemency of the weather, the proximity of the venue and the honed tradition of the Munster championship - there were a few gaps in the stands and at the Killinan end. Not a bad attendance but just not brimful.

Now it's not that people don't want to watch Clare and Cork. If they meet at Croke Park later in the year tickets will be as a scarce as hens' teeth so great will be the multitude of hurling lovers who need to get there. But Croke Park itself is part of the new shininess we love and crave. Any game in Croke Park is an occasion and a day out and I'd venture the stadium and its facilities have in the past few years boosted attendances regardless of the games.

It was good at Thurles yesterday but it didn't have the feel of a great occasion that was engaging a huge segment of society. There are many reasons for this. The aggressive and ingenious marketing by Heineken in the cause of rugby wouldn't be tolerated if the GAA were to attempt it in partnership with Guinness.

It is interesting that though Heineken are all over the rugby competition like a rash there hasn't been a whimper of protest from those who habitually pull across the ankles of the GAA for their rather more proper association with Guinness.

Then there is the nature of the coverage rugby's European Cup receives in this country. Not even the Irish soccer team (especially not, they would argue) get the partisan coverage and commentary our rugby participants receive in some quarters.

There are honourable exceptions of course, but this rugby cup more than any event in recent memory benefits from the absence of journalism and the harooing of cheerleaders.

This is of course a happy bonus which comes to some sporting occasions virtually unbidden. You could call it the Pat Kenny effect. When Pat is wearing a Munster jersey on Friday night on the Late Late Show and Ray D'Arcy is getting excited in the mornings on radio it doesn't matter that Munster play dull rugby or the competition is younger than anyone that plays in it. Somehow it has caught the imagination.

Cork and Clare began yesterday like two bantamweights determined to get a knockout of some sort by the first bell. It was cracking stuff - a continuation of a line of rivalry going back to the time of our great-grandparents and beyond.

When you think of all the blood sweat and tears which have been absorbed into its turf, Semple Stadium should be a national shrine.

Yet its proposed 18-million revamp can't come quick enough. There is nowhere in the country that we'd prefer to go for the friendliness, efficiency and atmosphere, yet the European Cup in rugby teaches us we have to keep moving and reinventing ourselves for the times we live in.

We're a shallow, fickle people at the end of the day, the sort of folk who don't know what we've got till it's gone. Hurling for all its wonder is stuck in a rut these times. Clare, the golden boys of the 90s revolution, were swatted away yesterday. Kilkenny will do likewise to Offaly and Wexford in Leinster. The game needs all the things Croke Park has been doing quietly - development and evangelisation - but it also needs something the rugby people have done so well. It needs selling, glitz, hype and razzmatazz. Heineken have done that job well. The old Guinness ads when they undertook the sponsorship of the hurling All-Irelands did that too but they petered out. Club Energise do it wonderfully.

There needs to be more though. Not just for hurling but for domestic soccer, etc.

The European Cup in rugby, the ice hockey in Belfast - they prove one thing: people won't come just because you stage an event; people will come if you create a buzz.

Time to learn from the Heino, chaps. Bring on the Jodinho ads.