Normal service has now resumed
Posted on Monday, April 24, 2006It’s been a difficult two weeks and there’s no point pretending otherwise. Ever since we witnessed Leinster taking Toulouse apart in a finely-controlled explosion of clinical inspiration, Munster people have been a little more restrained about making predictions. There’s been an awful lot of “Ah, sure, we’ll see” or “Time will tell”. Bock has been as guilty of this as everybody else, and the feeling didn’t fully evaporate until about 4:30 today, by which time Munster had demolished the invincible Leinster machine in a finely-controlled explosion of passion. In spite of my earlier comments about the allocation of tickets, it seems the ever-resourceful Munster fans were able to retrieve them from many sources. On the face of it, we had about four million Munster supporters in Lansdowne Road, and approximately NO Leinster supporters.
I fully understand that many of the Munster team were conflicted by today’s events. Not too long ago, they and the Leinster team members were in the trenches together fighting the international struggle, and winning. Some of these guys are closer than brothers, and for this understandable reason, they didn’t want to inflict extra humiliation on their friends by parading their victory too publicly. Bock has no such inhibitions, however. I am not in the least bit conflicted. I don’t mind in the slightest that Leinster were ground into the dirt by Munster today. It means we can go back to calling them the Leinster Ladies.
Let me state this. I have never experienced any atmosphere like the one in Lansdowne Road today. I have never seen such a symbiotic connection between any team and its supporters. Before the game started today, all you needed to do was look at the demeanour of the Munster players to realise that they were here on business. All you had to do was observe their calmness. All you had to do was recognise that they knew they were safe among their own. All you had to do was hear the red tide respond to that feeling, to reach out, envelop them and lift them beyond normal human limits, and you would realise that this was something outside the ordinary. Nothing was going to stop these men, up in Dublin on business, because they were never going to find themselves alone, no matter what.
Unlike their hosts.
Stumble it!
April 24th, 2006
Matt Williams,today, Irish Times, “So the anaconda pervailed over the cheetah”!!!!! What an absolute prat. This idiot seems to think as he has implied all last week that the Munster team is made up of grunting dim wits with no style flair or class. I am so mad at him BOK. He fails to notice that Munster had a plan and executed it perfectly. By the way, I thought the Leinster team was made up of ladyboys and not ladies, they have balls but don’t know what they are for.
April 25th, 2006
QJS I understand your anger, but you must be kind to the man. He is Matt Williams after all, and surely that in itself is punishment enough.
Bock