RUGBY: LEST WE forget, Munster won the Heineken Cup and Leinster won the Magners League. That makes 2008 a pretty damn good year for Irish rugby, for any time we start becoming blasé about having European champions and Celtic champions in the same calendar year then we really are in trouble. This definitely won't happen every year, or even every other year, writes Gerry Thornley

What's more, these relatively good times won't last for ever, but that's another story. Rewind 12 months and recall where Irish rugby was at. The World Cup had been a huge anti-climax for management, players and the estimated 60,000-80,000 that had travelled to France for one or more of the four Irish pool games.

The provinces had begun remedial action but the prospect of such a double still looked highly unlikely. Munster were embroiled in one of their annual dogfights to emerge from their pool, sitting a point above Wasps and four ahead of Clermont, but facing a trek to France and a traditional Anglo-Irish pool finale at Thomond Park, while Leinster were already looking doomed after defeats on the road to Toulouse and Edinburgh.

Munster performed one of their Houdini acts to emerge from the wreckage of the first half in Clermont with a losing bonus point and put Wasps to the sword in a Limerick mudbath to squeeze through ahead of Clermont on their head-to-head record.

Even so, what positive spin-offs there were from that scarcely emerged through a desultory Six Nations campaign as Eddie O'Sullivan clung on to his four-year extension (which still actually hadn't kicked in) as the IRFU ducked for cover and crossed their collective fingers.

Reflecting the deep public dissatisfaction with them and the World Cup, Croker was like a library for the three home games and the hangover clearly lingered on the pitch.

After a prosaic win over Italy and a misleading late comeback against a wavering France, the only light relief came by way of a five-try beating of the Scots when Geordan Murphy completed one of his typical out-and-back-in-again weeks with the man-of-the-match award.

But the stagnancy within the set-up was manifest again in a cravenly unambitious performance in the home defeat to Wales, for whom the Triple Crown must have been especially sweet for Warren Gatland, even if it paled by comparison to the Grand Slam which memorably followed with their 29-12 win over France in the grand finale in Cardiff.

Reflecting the year that was in it, coaches dominated many of the headlines - especially in the build-up to that game - and O'Sullivan instigated a rapprochement of sorts with Gatland over a pint in the Shelbourne Hotel later that night.

But the flawed decision-making in granting him that four-year extension prior to the '07 World Cup remained glaringly apparent, and after a 33-10 defeat to England in Twickenham, O'Sullivan resigned with some dignity four days later.

The same committee, or so-called "Three Wise Men", comprising Neil Jackson, Noel Murphy and Pat Whelan were charged with appointing O'Sullivan's successor. The obvious, outstanding candidate to take over the reins was Declan Kidney. So, precisely seven weeks, later, they duly appointed him.

In the interim, he had nudged them in his direction by helping Munster to navigate their way through a decidedly choppy looking quarter-final away to Gloucester and semi-final against Saracens in Coventry - which is perhaps where some of the IRFU powerbrokers would ideally like to have sent him. One of the jokes doing the rounds was that their notion of a unanimous decision was 2-1.

Alas, Kidney still had some unfinished business with Munster; ie the small matter of a Heineken Cup final against Toulouse, which meant he assumed the reins after the summer tour, and at the outset of this season. Effectively therefore, unlike Wales, Australia, South Africa and France, but in common with England, the first year in a four-year World Cup cycle was wasted.

Not always true to their history, the IRFU also gave Kidney carte blanche. Such was their desire to do so he could probably have acquired Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny. In the event, while undergoing a watching brief during the summer tour to New Zealand and Australia, Kidney and team manager Paul McNaughton went about recruiting a top-notch coaching staff.

Initially they appointed the well-travelled Australian defensive coach Les Kiss (whose impressive CV included a league career playing on the wing before stints as defensive coach to the Springboks, various South African Super 12 sides, the New South Wales Waratahs and Japan as well as head coach with Harlequins) and Gert Smal, who won two Currie Cups as coach of Western Province, reached two Super 12 semi-finals with the Stormers and was forwards/assistant coach to Jake White when the Boks won the World Cup.

To complete the ticket, Alan Gaffney was brought in as backs coach and Mark Tainton was retained as kicking coach.

In the meantime, the unfinished business went well, with Munster beating Toulouse 16-13 in a high-octane Euro decider. As at the Millennium Stadium two years before, an estimated 60,000 travelled by plains, trains and automobiles on behalf of the Red Army.

It was as if the new Thomond Park had been relocated to Cardiff and opened ahead of schedule.

The muscular close-range try by Denis Leamy may not linger as clearly in the memory as Peter Stringer's cheeky blindside effort in '06, but in many ways Munster played better and won more assuredly than against Biarritz two years before. But for a forward pass, Doug Howlett's disallowed "try" would have garnished any final, and Munster couldn't quite finish off some dynamic footwork by Lifeimi Mafi especially.

The outpouring of relief and accompanying tears was not, understandably, as apparent as in '06, when Munster had finally reached their holy grail after the crushing disappointments in the finals of 2000 and '02, along with many other narrow defeats in the semi-finals and quarter-finals.

The victory was for every one of the Red Army foot-soldiers, for every Irish person who supported them and undoubtedly for every player who has passed through the red jersey, but perhaps more so for the players themselves this time. "There have not been many happy days for a lot of us since our 2006 win," ventured their captain Paul O'Connell. "We had a tough European campaign last year and those of us in the Ireland team had a tough World Cup. People have shown bottle and courage to achieve this."

A second Heineken Cup in three years completed their transformation from bridesmaids to heavyweights, and was the perfect send-off for Kidney, though typically he shunned the personal attention and the spotlight, and had to be dragged onto the celebratory podium by Ronan O'Gara. "Mick Galwey said maybe you had to lose one to win one," recalled Kidney afterwards, "but maybe we had to lose two to win two."

Munster's victory was grudgingly acknowledged in some quarters amid criticism for their close-in, pick-and-rumble tactics to run down the clock. A frustrated Jean-Baptiste Elissalde furiously made off down the dressingroom in his William Gallas impersonation before returning to belatedly shake hands.

Toulouse, for once, had time to recover, and as in '06 when Munster's vanquished opponents in the final, Biarritz, went on to frank that achievement, so Guy Noves' team completed a remarkably draining World Cup year for his squad by beating Clermont in the French final.

So Munster had beaten the three-time European champions and French champions, the French runners-up, the English champions and the team that finished atop the regular season in England.

It's doubtful whether there's ever been a more meritorious winner. My Sky+ recording of the French final at least took in enough of that French final to witness the try of the season, but only months later while watching the endgame in a French bar, guess what Toulouse did? Copying is the greatest form of flattery.

In the 52nd and 53rd weeks of the season, the core suppliers to the Irish squad from Munster and Leinster dredged a couple more performances out of themselves against the All Blacks and Australia, but came up fractionally short, especially in the 18-12 defeat to the Wallabies in Melbourne.

On another day it might have been possible, but Ireland, along with Munster and Leinster, continue to draw heavily on the same group of players. Despite the infusion of new, younger players such as Tomás O'Leary the development of Luke Fitzgerald, Rob Kearney and others, not to mention the optimism generated by Kidney assuming the reins, the All Blacks engineered something of a bloodless coup at Croke Park before the immediacy of a World Cup draw based on world ranking heaped the pressure on management and players alike in a predictably taut win over Argentina.

Ulster continue to make encouraging progress under Matt Williams, with province and Ireland likely to reap some benefits, primarily in the longer term, but once more it is left to Munster and Leinster to try to carry the flag into the Heineken Cup knock-out stages and backbone the Irish team.

So Irish rugby ends the year delicately poised, Munster's resilience and endgame self-belief keeping their Euro ambitions alive after a pummelling by Clermont, while Leinster still have the means to progress despite their implosion at Castres.

And lest we forget, they're still both the reigning champions.

What We Already Knew

That Munster are the heartbeat of the game in Ireland and the source of sustenance when all else has failed and that Ireland had hit a trough that only radical surgery could begin to remedy.

What We Learned

Pretty much confirmation of what we already knew, with Leinster showing some consistency to supplement Munster's Heineken Cup win with a Magners League crown.

What We Think Might Happen

Hope springs eternal with Munster, even if some of the old guard are hanging on, Leinster continue to infuriate and delight - so who knows? Ulster are on the up and in Kidney we still trust, despite evidence that the remains of the 'golden generation' are also hanging on by a thread.