The world of Irish rugby will always wonder whether Eddie Halvey should have achieved more. Pound for pound, for sheer all-round ability, there've been few better Irish forwards - possibly only Keith Wood of the modern crop.

If Munster win today, they'll be immortalised even more than the crop of 1978, and it's fitting that the unique Eddie Halvey could be one of them, for he truly is a one-off.

He contents himself with a career well sated, and scoffs at the notion that there could or should have been more. He's engagingly easy-going and seemingly more content than most with his lot. Personal achievements and even rugby aren't everything to him.

Yet whatever about Ireland and the national or international recognition, he's rarely let Shannon or Munster down. He's a bit of a legend thereabouts.

And to have missed out on this would have left him with the kind of regrets that Shannon clubmate Alan Quinlan and the injured David Corkery must be feeling right now.

By the end of last season "I'd lost interest in the whole thing", he admitted. "I wasn't playing well so I really worked hard on my fitness over the summer. I did a bleep test and the score was diabolical, so I had to sit it again and I made a complete hames of that as well.

"So that was enough for me. That was one of the main reasons. I just couldn't handle the pressure of people telling me I wasn't fit enough for that level."

Hence, Halvey turned down a full-time provincial contract, opting instead to work for Cannon Hygiene and in partnership bought the franchise of a company called Freshen Up.

Fair enough, but a ridiculous consequence of all of this, apparently, was that the gifted Halvey would, at 29, be prematurely confined to club rugby alone.

The Munster Brains Trust clearly thought the notion equally daft, and inveigled Halvey back out of semi-retirement and into the Munster squad, albeit as back-row cover initially.

But his inclusion for the knock-out stages, the Munster management's one alteration to the side, has proved inspired.

His reach and athleticism on the opposition throw remained undiminished as he shredded the Stade Francais lineout and lasted until injury-time. Despite training just twice a week, the semi-final's only part-timer lasted the full 80 against Toulouse in stifling, sweltering conditions.

Halvey's work-rate was up there with everybody's - check out Peter Stringer's memorable chase with Michel Marfaing to Lee Stensness' chip ahead, and who's next up to actually make the touchdown?

Even Halvey admits it would have been a shame to have missed out on all of that and particularly what's to come today. "Obviously I would have kicked myself had I missed out on the European Cup. But both things are working well at the moment so it must have been a good decision as such."

It's tough on Alan Quinlan, his good friend and team-mate, who accommodated Halvey by switching flanker duties at Shannon. Halvey had played particularly poorly in a game against Young Munster, being taken off with 15 minutes to go.

"That sort of hit home base. I felt I let the team down and I let myself down in particular. I normally play well with Shannon and I normally enjoy playing with Shannon, but I didn't enjoy that game so mentally I sorted my head out and things started to improve then."

He prefers the slightly greater contact and ball-carrying duties involved with blindside flanker, but he knows he owes Quinlan one.

"Was that a bad decision on his part? I've the greatest of respect for Alan, I think he's a superb player. It was just one of those things."

Even so he was "gobsmacked" when Kidney announced Halvey's name in the starting line-up on the Tuesday morning before the quarter-final against Stade. So much so that he whispered to Anthony Horgan beside him: `Did he say my name?'

"I was delighted in one sense, but I felt bad for Alan. This is probably the biggest thing I've achieved in my life but a lot of the hard work was done before I even got there."

The debt he owes Declan Kidney is palpable. "We don't speak as rugby coach and player. He's never above me or viceversa. Even with all the lads, he speaks exactly the same way and he knows what buttons to push with everybody."

Now, with just two games back in the spotlight, already there's been an attractive offer from London Irish, who brought him over for the English cup final, and Halvey could probably have a full-time contract with Munster for next season if he wanted.

"I've got two weeks to decide. I've got a substantial offer from London Irish. I haven't actually been offered a Munster contract but I'll speak to Declan Kidney. I certainly haven't made up my mind."

He seems likely to stay. Halvey was the first Irish player to do the English club thing before severing his connections with Saracens prematurely to come home, due to his mother's illness.

"A lot of people said I didn't like it and that's why I got out, but it was mainly because my mum became ill with cancer and it was the right decision to make because she died a year and a half after I came home. So I did get to spend time with her, and I probably would have kicked myself had I not come home."

Yet he's also a Limerick lad through and through. "I love Limerick and this is probably where I'll settle down. It's just the whole Limerick rugby thing. Everybody knows everybody and there's a great social life down here as well. And I do enjoy socialising," he smiles.

As for failed bleep tests, those close to him reckon by now he probably has a mental block about them, or maybe they just bore him. But no discussion of Halvey would be complete without reference to the vexed issue of fitness.

"I don't know, I never said I was fit enough to play international rugby and I never said I wasn't. These people are doing a job and they want to get the best result. "Obviously at the time they didn't think I was fit enough so they took steps. That's their opinion of me and I can't change that. I have done some good scores. Some days I can get to that level and some days I can't."

He admits he wasn't physically conditioned enough for his early caps, citing the case of Abdel Benazzi bowling him over.

"But it wouldn't happen now. We get tougher the older we get and I think a forward is probably at his peak around 2829 to about 3132."

He's possibly only half joking when he says he has another four years in the back row and six more after that in the second row.

There have undoubtedly been cases of Halvey starting games a lot more prominently and at full tilt than he finished them. But too much has always been made of his notorious fitness levels and not enough of his talents.

Aside from the lineout work and his runs, many of his peers describe Halvey as the cleanest and best tackler in the Irish game.

Hurling might have been his game but for contracting meningitis, having played for Limerick under-11s and under-13s, and all the way up for Limerick under-age football sides.

He won medals in junior soccer, and was second in a Munster schools 100 metres. Yet he'd look you in the eye and maintain: "I wouldn't consider myself talented. Not at all.

"I never really had to work hard, I took to sports fairly easily because my handling co-ordination is good. My relaxed approach to things helps an awful lot. Maybe you don't make mistakes so much under pressure."

So he wonders what the fuss is about. "People's expectations of me are far greater than those I have of myself. I'm delighted with what I've achieved. I probably wouldn't change a thing to be honest.

"I've played for my country, I've been a professional rugby player in London and at home. I'm involved in a team in a European Cup final and outside of that I've played hurling and played for a senior football team. I've achieved more than most people, and I'm happy enough with that." He could have won 50 caps? "I didn't, and that's that."

The last of the eight was the biggest, against the All Blacks. "I felt I was restricted in what I could do, so I actually couldn't relax. I don't think I could play my own game."

For him though, as important as the four-in-a-row with Shannon, the great Munster days and the eight caps, have been the people he's met and the places he's been to through rugby.

Brian O'Brien's recent description of Halvey as a free spirit prompts a laugh. "I suppose I am to some degree. I'm very relaxed. Nothing excites me as such.

"Before the Stade Francais game there was a bit of nervousness in the hotel for the first time in a long, long time. But once I got to the pitch, all gone." It'll be the same today. "It won't affect me on the field at all.

"It's just another match for that 80 minutes. I will enjoy it, and hopefully rise to the occasion as well."

Hailing from the Kileely suburb near Thomond gate, Halvey began playing under-age rugby in Thomond a couple of times for the under-12s and again at under-18s.

He went to London on his 18th birthday to work for a cable company, but suddenly announced to a friend that he was going home to play rugby for Munster and within two years was helping Munster win the under-20 championship.

He joined Shannon ostensibly because he was hanging around with Leonard Pierce, brother of the Shannon outhalf John Pierce, who cajolled him into it.

That's fitting for some-one who maintains "you take the hand that life deals you". He attributes his ways to being reared in the company of four women, his grandmother, mother and two sisters, after his parents had separated. "They were all very placid, and it probably rubbed off on me."

Many have tried to figure him out, none more so than Brian O'Brien and Niall O'Donovan but maybe even they feel they never fully succeeded. "They've stuck by me through thick and thin. I've got great advice from both of them and I admire them both tremendously."

He's possibly been waylaid at times. You wonder occasionally if he was fearful of giving 100 per cent and then falling short, preferring instead to not give everything to his career and then take what came his way as a bonus. But however much coaches or teammates might have felt frustrated by him, few would dislike him, and there's widespread agreement amongst his peers that he's an exceptional rugby player.

Hence and much as any other player today, this fella ought to get a winner's medal. Someone this talented, this different, should officially have his place in Munster folklore.