Not looking too far ahead

Donncha O'Callaghan said the words few wanted to hear when the passion was still burning and the recollections of a match won largely in the trenches were still sharp and keeping the heart up.

What was in his mind? "Celtic League," said the secondrow.

"We're playing the Borders Friday night. That's the life of a professional rugby player these days."

It had the same kind of corrosive effect on the gathered media as hosing down a nest of vampires with Lourdes water. Celtic League is reality; European Cup is still the land of fantasy for the team that has come closer than any other and never laid a finger on it. This is Holy Grail. Celtic League is clocking in.

But the weathered and bruised O'Callaghan has steel running down his back and a natural ferocity. Some of the opposition in a fiercely fought forward scrap are his friends on the Ireland squad. Graciously, he made an effort to show a soft side.

"Yeah, it's tough knowing fellas (opposition)," he said, a little unconvincingly but warming to the theme. "Look at a player like Shane Horgan. You know after his game against England you could have kissed him. Out here today you'd knock his head off. It's a bit tough but once you put on a Munster jersey, it's a pride thing. It's about your friends, your family and the fans."

Jerry Flannery, never more than a headlong lunge from the tangle of limbs and a fearless manual labourer at the heart of the Munster pack, was comforted by the intensity and level of the Munster support. Fronting up to players for whom only weeks ago in a green shirt he was putting his body on the line is not a conundrum he has failed to work out. There is a pragmatism and selflessness about Flannery, a lack of fear in his eyes.

"It doesn't make any difference," said the hooker about who he steps across the whitewash with and faces across the pitch.

"When you get on the field, they're not your friends. The only real difference (in playing a familiar team) is that we are aware of how good they are. You are just on your game a bit more when you see guys like D'Arcy, Horgan and O'Driscoll. You know you can't switch off for a minute."

Jim Williams walked out and embraced the audience with his big Australian smile. The systematic squeeze of Leinster is Munster's favourite and most rewarding form of team-kill. Pythonesque, they constrict every time the opposition tries to take a breath.

"Definitely a great first half," said the former Wallaby. "We kept the pressure on. That's our game. Holding onto the ball and working through the forwards, trying to get field possession and putting the pressure from there. The composition and composure was there for the 80 minutes."

Ideal as the game was, and that's excluding two late opportunistic tries, perfect is a word alien to Munster's mentality.

"Once Leinster got the ball, they could generate attack quickly. When they started doing that in the second part of the second half, it really started worrying me. They were getting quick ball and they were getting numbers on us as well. Definitely if Felipe got those penalties it would have been a much closer game, especially at half-time."

But with Leinster not quite firing, Munster had the latitude to do what they do best in the pack. Much of the winners' satisfaction came from playing the game everyone said they were going to play and doing it with unmatchable intensity.

"They were off their game a little bit today," acknowledged Williams. "An occasion like this can get to some players. I think obviously Felipe was off his game with his kicking and that. That didn't get the back line going."