TREVOR BRENNAN'S DIARY: Trevor Brennan had a mixed week with a bruising success in the Heineken Cup that may see him miss a much-desired meeting with Munster
What a week. I played through the Northampton game with food poisoning and cramping, and things still aren't going too well for me. I mightn't be playing in the Munster game. I had an MRI scan yesterday morning and there is a 10 centimetre tear in one of the muscles in my 'quad'. It's going to be a fight against time really.
I won't be playing in the play-off match this weekend away to Pau. Then again, I played against Northampton without realising I had the tear. I had an X-ray last week and nothing showed up, but then the MRI scan yesterday didn't turn out too good and I'll have another one next Wednesday before making a decision.
It's up to me really; how much pain I'm in and how much I can run with it, but the norm is 20 days.
Like I said, what a week. I didn't train last Monday or Tuesday because of a calf strain I picked up in the Bourgoin game. On Tuesday night I got what I think was food poisoning. Tuesday night wasn't much fun, and I felt terrible throughout the next day, but Wednesday is a big day for us - it's usually the day we play the espoir, the team for aspiring players.
They can be up to 24 or 25-years-old, and would be guys who are potential first-team players. You'd put on all the protection gear as it could become a full-on game. They're out to make an impression. A bit like me out in the ALSAA complex in my early days training with the Irish squad.
So the doctor gave me the usual medication and told me to drink plenty of water. After the 20 minutes warm-up I thought I was going to die, so the coach told me not to play the match against the espoir, just to do a few laps.
Myself and Patrick Cazale, who was also injured, started to quicken but on my sixth lap my left quad was pretty bad so I stopped and went straight into the physio. They just thought I was cramping because I was dehydrated. So I spent the next two days taking on plenty of fluids, taking plenty of rest, taking hot and cold baths; thinking it was just cramping.
The decision to play was left until Saturday and was basically up to me, and having 13 family and friends over put the pressure on to play. I met up with them on the Friday night and despite being delayed in Heathrow they were having good craic.
Since my move to Toulouse my dad has taken more of a liking to vin rouge and hardly drinks anything else now. Alan Graham told me: "It's great to see your dad is off the drink - we've nicknamed him 'six bottles'". The lads reckon six bottles isn't very good for the heart. But by Saturday night my dad had nicknamed Alan "two barrels", as in two barrels of anything.
With the pressure on to play I took more anti-inflammatories on Saturday morning. French-English rugby matches of any kind always have a bit of history to them and at the team talk the coach seemed to go back as far as World War One.
Then at the end he threw in how badly they had treated the Irish over the years. "Think of Trevor today guys." I didn't know exactly what he'd said but afterwards guys were coming up to me and asking me: "Did they really do that to your family?"
It was my first time to play in the Stade de Toulouse, a fantastic stadium, and when I opened my locker, there was an artist's sketch of my dad sitting in the Killarney the night before. It was done by Phil Browne, an Englishman with Irish blood in him, who does lots of artist's impressions for the club. My dad wished me good luck and signed it. A nice little boost.
It was very, very physical. The Northampton guys weren't holding back. Any time anybody went to ground there were boots flying. Vincent Clerc tackled Ben Cohen at one stage and Cohen lashed out with the fist. Vincent had to get six stitches and that kind of set the precedent for the whole game.
Budge Pountney was sinbinned later for stamping on Fabien Pelous and then Cedric Desbrosse, our centre, was sinbinned for killing the ball. It was a fairly fiery game. Alan Lewis controlled it fairly well. He must have called in the two captains about 15 times.
We did well on their lineouts, but I don't know whether it was down to the system we were using or the throwing-in of Steve Thompson. The guys stood up to Northampton when the going got tough, and it was the first time I'd seen us stick together like that as a team all season. It was good to see a bit of fighting spirit in the boys.
The defence was top drawer and we scored three good tries. Christian Labit got the first try, the second was by Xavier Garbajosa and the third try was a breakaway try from a kick ahead by Cedric Heymans. Their try came from a penalty when 'Lewey' penalised us an extra 10 and they moved it wide. Some people might disagree but I thought it was a fairly high-quality rugby game all in all. The atmosphere was fantastic although you have to put the points on the board. They react to the scores, like most French supporters. At half-time I could feel the legs cramping again, and I lasted 60 minutes, which I was pretty happy about.
I spent about an hour in the after-match tent and watched the first half of the Leinster game - and I also spoke to Denis Hickie later as well. They probably had 70 per cent of the possession and it was the kind of game that if a few more passes had gone to hand, they could have scored another three or four tries, though it was also a game they could have lost at the end.
The internationals being away for the Six Nations probably had an effect and with another two weeks' training together they'll be better against Perpignan.
But the phone was hopping after our game, so I hooked up with Phil Browne and hitched a lift into the Killarney, me with my kit bag and him with his portfolio of art, because he paints from the sidelines at every match. We flagged down a car driven by a French guy who knew nothing about rugby but was just a decent guy. Who said the French weren't nice people? I didn't get to see the Munster game on Sunday at all, spending most of the day on the go with family and friends, making sure people got back to the airport and so on. I also knew I'd get to see it plenty of times next week before the semi-final.
But by all accounts they played superbly. Typical Munster - never say die. Now here they are in another semi-final, their fourth in a row. There was no real preference for which side we faced. Either Leicester or Munster would be as tough as you could get. Midi Olympique, the main rugby paper over here, had a headline looking ahead to the semi-finals which simply said "Ireland versus France".
But for us we've a big match this weekend against Pau. The coach has said we'll worry about the European Cup and talk more in detail about Munster next week. Really to qualify from the play-offs into the semi-finals you need to win one out of your three away games, and we've lost our first one.
On Monday morning the Doc, Albert Sabeucca, wasn't taking any chances and arranged the MRI scan, or what's called an IRM scan over here, for yesterday, and then came the bad news. I can walk on it fine but there is a risk of tearing it more. I'm annoyed because I've only missed one game this season, due to suspension. I haven't missed one game through injury, but when I asked him if I could play this weekend he just laughed.
The coach slagged me this morning, asking me: "Are you afraid of the Irish?" But I'm going to do everything I can to get it right for the Munster game. Running up against Quinny, Axel and the boys will be just like old times.
This is one game I don't want to miss.
• Trevor Brennan's regular Heineken Cup column can be read on the ERC website, which is at www.ercrugby.com
• In an interview with Gerry Thornley
