Munster have started something big

Six years ago in Twickenham the Red Army hadn't quite been mobilised. Playing an English team in England meant no ...coup was possible and the stadium felt like a foreign one. The Northampton Saints fans sang incessantly and the noise washed around the old bowl of a stadium. “Oh when the saints” drowned the invading hoards and O'Gara missed the chance to win the Heineken Cup late on. Traipsing out of the ground that day it didn't feel like we were watching the beginning of an odyssey or some sort of heroic journey, it just felt like another classic Irish defeat-snatched-from-jaws-of-victory moment. This time the stadium was full of Munster fans. Just as it has been all season long.

Munster's victory could also be a beginning instead of an end. Becoming European Champions has an odd effect on people. For Manchester United it was also a grim obsession in 1999 and their reaction – at least according to the Munster fan in their camp, Roy Keane – was to party like it's 1999. One European Cup in ten attempts for a brilliant team isn't that impressive. Luckily Munster don't have a Dwight Yorke figure at the centre of their achievements.

The hope must be that this success coats the players in a bullet-proof confidence that they carry with them into the next 18 months.
The European Cup final is a big game and this time an Irish team performed to their abilities. It was obvious that Biarritz would get a chance to control the game. Clear as well that Munster's response in that second half would decide their fate. They didn't blink. There was no loss of discipline. Peter Stringer put his try down to research and analysis done on the opponents. O'Gara looked like someone who understood the lessons of his career to date, revelling in having full awareness of his situation. The forwards performed the same tasks again and again without error. Their performance under stress and against talented opponents was almost perfect.

In the aftermath of victory the players spoke of seeing O'Connell Street in Limerick jammed in the rain with fans watching big screens.
They spoke of tradition and family and where they're from and the money the fans had spent to follow them. This isn't the usual picture of an elite professional sportsman detached from reality bitching to his agent about his shoe deal. For the previous failed attempts in the competition it seemed like Munster needed to remove the emotion of being a local team for local people and concentrate on buying in better talent. But buying in the talent failed and this team's achievements grew from a collective will and a shared history.

Is it possible to replicate these circumstances elsewhere in Irish rugby? Most pointedly with the Irish team? The challenge is Eddie O'Sullivan's, though his supporting cast should guarantee success.