Planet Cardiff

Compiled by Johnny Watterson

Howlett does Super 14 and European Cup double

THE MUNSTER and former All Black wing Doug Howlett became only the second player to earn a Heineken Cup winner's medal and a Super 14 winner's medal.

Prior to Saturday's win the Australian centre Rod Kafer was the only player to hold both when he won the Super 12 (as it was then called) with ACT Brumbies in 2001 and followed that up with a European Cup winner's medal with Leicester the next year.

Howlett won the Southern Hemisphere medal with the Auckland Blues.

Instructive introductions

MAYBE IT always happens this way but the introductions of the teams at the Millennium Stadium before the match was more instructive at the weekend than it normally is. Usually, the stadium announcer simply lists all of the players on each team. In the stadium, though, they called out each player and then his opposite number. So after Tomás O'Leary we heard not the Munster number 10 Ronan O'Gara but the Toulouse nine Byron Kelleher, O'Leary's opposite number. More interesting to see the head-to-heads?

SEVERAL players lost their footing during the final, seemingly because the closing of the roof increased humidity. The pitch was firm but with supporters sweating buckets it became greasy on top.

Warren Gatland, indeed, showed his perspicacity by saying before the game that the players should wear longer studs because of this.

"It was hard to sit there and watch. It was disappointing. But you take decisions. You've a long career and you live with it. Munster now have two Heineken Cups and are ranked as the number-one team in Europe next season. We don't have much to complain about. I don't have anything to complain about."

- Mixed reaction from Anthony Foley, who was left out of the final squad to face Toulouse.

Screen shocker for supporters

THE ORGANISERS did it when Munster played Biarritz in 2006 and did it again in Cardiff. Last time, however, they flashed up the crowds watching the match on a big screen only in Ireland and not in France (because there were none).

The Limerick fans must have been shocked by one of last Saturday's images: that of Jerry Flannery's bloodied head after it had been accidentally stepped on by Alan Quinlan.

HEINEKEN CUP WINNERS

1996: Toulouse (bt Cardiff 21-18)

1997: Brive (bt Leicester 28-9)

1998: Bath (bt Brive 19-18)

1999: Ulster (bt Colomiers 21-6)

2000: Northampton (bt Munster 9-8)

2001: Leicester (bt St Francais 34-30)

2002: Leicester (bt Munster 15-9)

2003: Toulouse (bt Perpignan 22-17)

2004: Wasps (bt Toulouse 27-20)

2005: Toulouse (bt St Francais 18-12)

2006: Munster (bt Biarritz 23-19)

2007: Wasps (bt Leicester 25-9)

2008: Munster (bt Toulouse 16-13)

Pelous straight into top 10

FABIEN PELOUS may well be remembered for getting one of the silliest yellow cards of the year for his petulant boot on Alan Quinlan right in front of the touch judge.

Pelous, indeed, may well go straight into the top 10 in acts of folly, including such particularly stupid cardings as Zidane's head-charge on Marco Materazzi in the World Cup, Didier Drogba's recent slap of Nemanja Vidic's face and David Beckham's delightful foot flick on Diego Simeone.

SURELY it won't deter avid fans from wanting to kiss Ronan O'Gara's 2008 European Cup winners medal. The Munster and Ireland outhalf, needing both hands to take a full part in the post-match tomfoolery with bottles of champagne, clearly didn't want to let the medal out of his possession. Practical to the end, Rog stuffed it down the front of his shorts for safe keeping.