It doesn't get bigger than this

Trevor Brennan offers a taste of how it will feel to be on the winning team

We've spent a few days in camp in St Cyprian, having a few training sessions with the foreign legion, some go-karting, golfing and a few drinks. Over here it's called team building and it couldn't be farther away or further removed from the hype of the Leinster-Munster semi-final.

For the first time in four years we are not involved in the semi-finals of the Heineken European Cup, and after losing to Leinster we went to Biarritz, where we were beaten by nine points. That left us with a sell-out game against Stade Francais in front of 38,000 supporters in Le Stadium in Toulouse last weekend.

It was a make-or-break game for us. Lose and the season was basically over in terms of qualifying for the top four, semi-final play-offs. I felt relaxed before the game, unlike the last time I played in Le Stadium against Leinster. I didn't say much in the build-up to the game or during the warm-up, but before we went out I let it rip.

I said no one had turned up the last day against Leinster, no one had played well, myself included, and I was pissed off that we let a lot of fans down. To see 38,000 in the ground, and all but 1,000 of them wearing red and black, and cheering for Stade Toulousain, meant we could not afford to do that twice in a row.

It was a fantastic atmosphere, with a 9pm kick-off to accommodate television. The hype around the game was the same as when we played in front of a world-record crowd, for a club game, of 78,000 in Paris last October, although I can only imagine what the hype is like for this semi-final between Leinster and Munster.

Well, what can be said about tomorrow's match that hasn't been said already? So many people would give an arm to get a hand on tickets (if you know what I mean) for this match. It must be the biggest of the 122 contests between these two provinces since they first met in 1876. It really has to be the most important meeting between Leinster and Munster in those 130 years.

When I first started watching Leinster as a young fella there were really only the interpros and the occasional match against touring teams, and all the matches against Munster I recall as being fairly bloody affairs. I got my first taste of the unique Leinster-Munster rivalry in 1996.

In my seven years with Leinster one game against Munster at Musgrave Park stands out. We led all the way right until the end. The ball was supposed to be thrown to the tail of the lineout but David Wallace caught it and ran what seemed like the length of the pitch to score a try.

Myself and Peter Clohessy had a run-in, and myself and Mick Galwey had a run-in. They were always very physical games for the full 80 minutes. Munster didn't have the stars then, but they do have them now. But even then they were always at their most dangerous when the odds were stacked against them. In all my time with Leinster I can only ever remember winning the interpros once.

Some things have changed since I started out with Leinster, some have stayed the same. They still don't have a home ground, as such. But their support is a good deal louder and they seem to have much more of an away following, which they never had before.

Since I've gone, they've gone through Matt Williams, Gary Ella and Declan Kidney, and now have Michael Cheika, whereas here at Toulouse I couldn't imagine any other coach than Guy Noves, who's been here a dozen or so years and has won several French titles and three European Cups.

I don't know much about Cheika but, watching from the outside, this guy seems to have brought some self belief into the team. Leinster always had the talent, and the gamebreakers.

My memory of playing Munster is that everybody in the Leinster squad always wanted to beat them more than anybody. Munster used to regularly win the interpros in those years and were always a team with fire and spirit, and a few star players who helped them pull off some great results against touring teams.

To be honest, they always had a more illustrious history than Leinster, obviously with that famous win over the All Blacks in 1978, and I think that history helped them carry on the great Munster tradition with their exploits in the European Cup, beating the likes of Gloucester and Sale at home, or Stade Francais and Toulouse away, and pulling off epic victories against all the odds.

They've been to two finals and three semi-finals, and if there's a team who deserve to win the European Cup in its 10-year history it's Munster.

Both teams will dread losing this game as much as any other they've ever played for their provinces because of what's at stake. There's a place in the final, first of all, but secondly, and just as importantly almost, there's the pride at stake, and being able to walk down the street the next morning with your head held high.

I know it's only a game but in my experience winning is everything. The European Cup really has been extraordinary. In my first three years here we got to three finals and won two of them, and I can only try and explain what it felt like or meant. To come back to Toulouse and be met by 10,000 people congregated in La Place du Capitole was an experience I'll never forget.

Every time you went into a restaurant or a bar with the cup everything was on the house. We were having different receptions with different sponsors for weeks and weeks afterwards.

When we won the tournament after beating Perpignan in Lansdowne Road three years ago, the French president, Jacques Chirac, invited us to Le Palais de l'Elysee for lunch. I suppose that underlines how important the competition is.

A further example of how big the competition is that you could have filled the 38,000 capacity at Le Stadium twice over for the Leinster quarter-final and I'm sure you could have filled Croke Park twice over for this semi-final, never mind Lansdowne. There's no other competition like it in the world. When we played Leinster in the quarter-final the tickets were sold out in two hours.

I was watching a Super 14 game the other night between the Auckland Blues and the Western Force, and there were rows and rows of empty seats. Years ago it was the kind of match I'd have stayed up late or got up early to watch, but not any more.

I can't imagine what the hype is like for this game. If Ireland were going for the Grand Slam I don't think the hype would be as big. My brother was telling me of people on the Gerry Ryan Show willing to pay €1,000 for a ticket.

With all the demands on the players themselves for tickets, the mind can be easily sidetracked. In the week of the Leinster game I was hounded for tickets, hotels, taxis, train times, the works. It can throw you, and even now, at this stage of my career, I learned a lot from that game.

Writing my notes on the team bus en route to our go-karting, a couple of the boys asked me what I was doing. Yannick Jauzion was first in and Yannick Bru was sitting alongside me, and it was interesting to canvass their opinions.

Jauzion thought Munster would do it because of their pack, especially their lineout, and their ability to steal lineouts. He didn't highlight one player in particular, but thought the Munster pack would be stronger and Ronan O'Gara had the ability to pin Leinster into the corners: apply that pressure game they do so well.

He believes Leinster could be just as good in other areas and have the better backs, but he repeated the obvious truth that you cannot win without the ball. He believes Munster will succeed in keeping the ball away from the Leinster backs.

Bru doesn't believe the Munster lineout is necessarily superior to Leinster's; he reckons the Leinster pack has become stronger over the years and can cause Munster problems up front. If they do win quality ball, he says, then their backs will complete the job.

Perhaps that just shows you no one can really call it. It also shows there's a fair amount of interest in France. But to be honest, most of the European Cup focus is in Biarritz, as they're the only French team leftin the competition. For everyone else the focus is on the Top 14.

I'll be watching it of course, but I wouldn't like to make a prediction.

Any team that comes through the pool stages and the quarter-finals has the ability to win the European Cup and the difference between those who do and those who don't is as much psychological as anything else.

It's not an arrogance, but just a belief that you can do it. You've got to give everything for 80 minutes. Every minute counts.

In my first year we played Munster in the semi-finals. Munster led for about 70 minutes but the game changed when we brought on Jean-Baptiste Elissalde and switched Freddy Michalak to outhalf. We went to the final in Dublin but if Munster had won I believe they would have won the final hands down.

In the second year, in the semi-finals, Biarritz led all the way until we brought on Isitolo Maka. He scored a try that changed the game and we qualified for another final.

In last year's final in Murrayfield, Stade led us until the 75th minute but we equalised with a penalty and kicked two more in extra-time to win it.

I think what this shows is that when it comes to this stage of the competition there is absolutely nothing between the teams. But my very last prediction is that whichever Irish team wins through has got a great chance of reaching what I call the Holy Grail. Shoot for the stars, boys.