Munster on threshold of true European immortality

Munster have earned themselves a tilt at the princes of European and French rugby and for that we owe them a huge debt of gratitude

ARE MUNSTER supporters, and indeed Irish ones, becoming a little too spoilt? Listening to Chelsea fans moaning about Avram Grant on radio phone-ins as they stand within a few games of the Champions League and English Premier League - which until recently they hadn't won for half a century - it would hardly make the Red Army unique. Most fans become a little too used to success.

They're the best supporters in European rugby, possibly the world, and this despite every inconvenience that's been put in their way by ERC - among them the proliferation of Sunday matches in venues with insufficient airport access or hotel facilities - and they are a vital part of the lifeblood that sustains Munster.

Even so, listening to the generally negative reaction to Munster's performance last Sunday in Coventry among their own supporters was a surprise. Munster came through a group containing the possible champions in waiting of England and France. They then beat the English league pacesetters on their own famed patch. They travelled back to England to beat another English side who were producing their most inspired performance of the season (even better than the one with which they eclipsed the Grand Slam-infused Ospreys). And now they've earned a tilt at the princes of European and French rugby in the final.

Rewind a decade and had Munster achieved the feat then we'd all be swinging from the rafters. That it has come in the midst of Irish rugby's biggest disappointment of the professional era, namely the World Cup, and at the time of Ireland's worst Six Nations campaign in a decade, makes the sense of debt owed to them even greater. That it is their fourth final in nine years makes the achievement even more laudable.

Much is made of Munster's Kiwi infusion in their three-quarter line, and even that has negative undertones, as if somehow they are selling Irish rugby short. But would Munster be in another Heineken Cup final without them? Rua Tipoki, whose arrival was questioned among some Munster supporters on the basis that his motives were largely financial, has proved to be a jewel. And if Lifeimi Mafi with his skills, pace, footwork and bravery and if a character such as Doug Howlett cannot be inspiring heroes for the next Munster generation, then we may as well give up.

Yet what makes Munster's success even better still is that 17 of the 22 on duty last Sunday are not only Irish-qualified but are Munster-born and groomed. No other Irish sports team has had anything like their success on the international stage since the Republic of Ireland football team circa 1988-2002. And no other rugby team in Europe is doing what they're doing.

Even Toulouse, with the most famed rugby nursery in France, had only 13 indigenous players in their 22 at Twickenham, while 10 out of London Irish's 22 at Twickenham on Saturday were non-English qualified (and, as an aside, only two were Irish), and likewise 10 of Saracens' squad.

In any event, now it's Toulouse. The standard-bearers of Irish and French rugby. The ultimate challenge. The two semi-finals had looked like near-replica match-ups and each panned out quite similarly. Both of the giants had come through hugely difficult draws, losing two matches each; both were drawn away to inspired English sides with little to lose and only this tournament to play for; both fell behind to an early seven-pointer; both responded with a two-try brace before having to draw on bottomless wells of courage to cling on at the end.

Given they've played 92 and 93 Cup matches each, and contested seven finals between them up until now, the wonder is that Munster and Toulouse have met only three times and none of those meetings has been a final. Fittingly, though, each has proved a benchmark or landmark on Munster's ever-enduring Heineken odyssey.

The 60-19 defeat in Toulouse in year two of the Heineken Cup, 1996-97, when Mick Galwey famously implored his team-mates behind the posts to "keep it under 50" was the defining moment in the early throes of the competition and professionalism. To compete at that level Munster, and Irish, rugby had to have fully professional squads; they could not do it in a piecemeal way.

The stunning 31-25 semi-final win in Bordeaux just three years later was the day, in effect, when the Red Army was born.

It convinced even Keith Wood's doubtful team-mates his pre-season ambition, to win the European Cup, wasn't so fanciful after all.

Sadly, it didn't happen that rain-drenched, stormy end-of-May day in Twickenham when they came up a point short against Northampton.

After another final defeat, against Leicester in 2002, the 13-12 semi-final defeat away to Toulouse and the class divide on the benches demonstrated like no other game that to compete at this level Munster simply had to have a squad.

Now Munster are seeking to become a true giant of the European game themselves, by joining the elite club of three to win this tournament more than once. And standing in their way are the only three-time winners. That it will most probably be Declan Kidney's last hurrah as their messiah makes it even more era-defining. There would also be no more fitting way to send Kidney and Anthony Foley off into the sunset, and (who knows?) maybe Alan Quinlan, John Hayes, David Wallace and one or two more.

After all, Kidney warned us that, like the Celtic Tiger, these things don't go on forever. No less than four finals though, the Thomond Park redevelopment and the formal unveiling for the visit of the All Blacks (in a typically grand gesture by New Zealand rugby) next October is another fitting legacy of this Munster generation. So perhaps Kidney might be proved wrong, and a legacy is being left that can ensure Munster remain a Euro force, à la Toulouse, for generations to come.

A second Heineken Cup would help.