I know it’s not quite 20 years yet, but with the launch of Munster’s new retro kit commemorating the 2006 Heineken Cup win, I thought it might be cool to pull out my favourite part from that game.
You know, given how much 1978 meant to Munster and Munster fans, it was pretty cool that this moment came into being exactly 78 minutes into the biggest game in the province’s history to that point. We’d experienced heartbreak before. Too many times to mention. I’ll put it like this: when we were four points up with just two minutes to go against an outstanding Biarritz side, I don’t think anyone would have been surprised to see what always had happened go right ahead and happen again.
The team were running on empty. Paul O’Connell, who was touch-and-go to even tog out for this one, was off the field after 75 minutes. Anthony Foley had gone off earlier than that again. They had no more to give. Biarritz were big, powerful, and had all the momentum heading into the last few minutes. Munster almost turned over a Biarritz lineout around our 10m line, and in the ensuing scramble, the ball became unplayable in the ruck, so Biarritz would have the scrum.
Game on the line, prime attacking position. They only needed a try to win it.
But Freddie Pucciarello was down and would need treatment. To be honest, if there were enough physios, the entire team would have gone down for treatment.
Two minutes left. That’s all. But two minutes in this game can feel like twenty.
Enter the Munster fans, and a TV director in the Sky Sports production truck. Throughout the game, the TV director had been cutting in B-footage of O’Connell Street in Limerick, where thousands of Munster fans were watching the game.
He cut to the crowd on 72 minutes, and the thousands of Munster fans in the then-Millennium Stadium saw the crowd back in Limerick, who then saw themselves on TV, and the energy started to rock back and forth across the Irish sea.
That’s a good moment, but not the best one.
When Pucciarello went down with a shoulder injury, the Munster fans seemed to sense that the team was flagging badly. So The Fields began to roll around the stadium, as only that song seems to be able to roll.
It catches you like a wave when it’s loud enough, and it was loud enough here to knock you off your feet.
Then the TV director, as he panned around the different angles of the fans, cut in the live feed from O’Connell Street, and the energy went through the roof.
The players felt it. Biarritz felt it. In that moment, it felt like the whole world felt how much it meant to us.
No more heartbreak.
Up.
Up.
More tackles. As many as would be needed. More energy. Outlast them. We want it more than they do. More than anyone ever could.
And then it was over.
Watching back this final made me realise how old I am now, and how different everything was back then. But some things have stayed the same. Some things can never change, actually.
We haven’t changed.
Munster hasn’t changed.
It’s time we remembered that when we were kings, the biggest connection was between the fans and the players. That’s all we ever seemed to need.
