As well as his regular Thursday column this week, Keego gives us a personal account of his big match weekend…
PART 2…POST-MATCH
And here we go with another tale of me versus Munster fans.
Saturday was great fun. The journey in on the dart (that’s the train the runs on electricity, as a point of reference for my Munster friends) was great fun. Lots of blue and a fairly decent amount of red. Great banter on the train. We were getting hyped up, so by the time I got to Lansdowne station I was ready, I had the vocal warm ups done and I just needed to gauge the amount of red around me once I got to my seat.
I was to use the orange entrance which confused a lot of Munster people. While I was in line to go through the entrance there where at least 10 of them who must have suffered from colour blindness ;). To add to the comedy value there was a fella from Northern Ireland at the orange entrance shouting no to Munster fans, which I found funny.
Anyway, once I got into the stadium the atmosphere was great. It was like every person on earth was in there. I was east lower, not a bad spot. We where close enough to Jerry Flannery on the sidelines to shout at him. I think he is a legend and it is very sad that he had to call it a day early; he always fought with everything he had and was great to watch. But today I had to shout at him to remind him he was on tg4 and had to speak in Irish. He was not pleased.
There wasn’t a lot of red around me in the east lower. A couple here and there. I am not sure where the Leinster branch put them all. Another thing that was annoying was that there was a huge amount of tickets sold, nearly a sellout (46,280 to be exact). But there were a huge amount of the seats in the south terrace empty. Sure if you spend 40 euro on a ticket you should show up? Unless you have more money than you can spend, so in that case, give me some!
The game started at a high tempo, it was great to see us really go for it in a way that we haven’t up until this point. Strauss did a strictly come dancing twisting move to score under the posts after just 4 minutes. The try was set up by the notorious B O’D grubber kick which lead to Munster giving away a scrum. What a start!
Then!!! Munster started playing some sexy rugby. It was actually great to see. Quick fluid passing in the middle of the pitch. The contingent of red near me jumped to life. A great passage of play led to O’Mahony scoring a try right in front of me. I couldn’t boo this piece of play, it was really good and is a sign that if Munster can get a more inventive winger than Zebo, they will be a monster team again.
At 12 minutes Kev McLaughlin hyper extended his elbow. We caught a glimpse of it on the big screen and it looked nasty! The word is that it was not as bad as it looked on the night, but I couldnt drink my Guinness for a few seconds, it was that manky looking. Jordi Murphy came on and acquitted himself well for the rest of the game.
So the next few minutes were a kicking competition. Sexton smashed over a couple, and then hit the post.
Then Redzer started working some magic, flinging the ball around quickly and precisely and had Munster on the back foot. The soon to be back up Irish number 10, Ian Madigan snuck past LuaLuaLuaLuaLua to score a fairly savage try. So we got to 23 minutes with the score at 17-11 to the blues.
Again it became a kicking competition, Sexton nailing 1 from 2 and O’Gara slotting 1 kick over. Munster where now only a score behind, O’Gara had a chance to eat into that 7 points, but hit the post. Jaysus there was more banging of wood in this game, than in that film I accidently starred in…….
But that’s a story for another time…
Leinster started turning the screw (not the name of the above mentioned film) after that missed O’Gara kick. We all could see this next try coming together while the play was happening. Strauss (who played a blinder) and Fergalicious McFadden parted the red sea and left the notorious B O’D to sneak in and score another savage try. I am convinced he covered himself in butter to slide into the corner. There is no other possible explanation.
Aside from the fact that he is Brian O’Driscoll and he can’t believe it’s not butter.
Now we were being dominant, I think Munster started getting a wee bit worried. Our offloads where going to hand and the blue line was holding firm. Some great tackles where flying in and it looked like the reds where letting their heads drop.
The Munster frustration showed in their lack of discipline. There were constant infringements in the ruck and Varley was binned shortly after coming on. Sexto slotted the kick which elicited a huge roar from the Blue army. I think we could see daylight between us and the opposition.
Munster then morphed into the team of old. The team we always liked to watch but never wanted to play against. The emo kid Conor Murray scored a sloppy try in the corner which gave them confidence. They even had a try disallowed because of a knock on. I couldn’t see it in the replay, but I thanked all the gods that the refs did. Their forwards where demolishing us, which got me very worried. They really tore into us and we were lucky to hang on in the end.
I understand we had a depleted squad, but we really shouldn’t be hammered like this at any point in any game. Clermont would have eaten us for dinner here.
30-21 was the final score. There where handshakes between the supporters. The few reds that where around us did try their hardest, but they just couldn’t overcome the sheer volume of noise emanating from my face.
There were a lot of plusses from this match. We started really well, we dealt with a lot of pressure from a Munster side that where far better than I had expected. The negatives where that we were hanging on at the end. We didn’t seem capable of dealing with the Munster threat for the last 10 minutes and got lucky with the knock on in the lead up to the LuaLuaLuaLua disallowed try. We also have a fairly sever injury list. While the news from UCD this morning wasn’t all bad, there is still too many who haven’t played a full match coming into the Heineken games.
In closing, and as usual, the banter with the Munster fans at the game was great. They really tried their hardest. So it is in this spirit that I say, I WILL SEE YOU IN THOMOND PARK!! ;)
Until Thursday…
Keego (@nkeegan) : Newbie blogger, former professional wrestler, sometime attempted rugby player (@TheThirsty3rds), professional procrastinator and attempted musician with a fondness for long walks on the bar, tea and the couch. Opinionated Leinster fan and constant gardener.
