A LEGACY’S DOWNFALL IN A DECADE
BEFORE we know it, a decade will have flown by with Munster doing nothing much. And if those 10 years are formally marked, then serious questions will have to be asked of those who allowed one of the greatest clubs in the European game be reduced to noisy also-rans. Seven years ago in Thomond Park, Paul O’Connell and Ronan O’Gara were there when they took advantage of a Leinster team still lapping up their second Heineken Cup triumph, and Munster claimed the Celtic League. And this afternoon, once again, Munster have an opportunity of tripping up Leinster in the Pro14 semifinal, if the European champions are not one hundred per cent focused. But that’s all it will be – a brave, but questionable mugging, and not something that Munster coaching staff can truly herald as a defining moment in a season which badly nose-dived in the European semi-final against Racing 92. As a team, Munster remain a formidable challenge on their better days. The club’s history and legacy are still at work on the field quite often, but with 1,000 tickets being sent back to Dublin for this afternoon’s showdown it would seem that those watching simply don’t see Munster as the team they still want to live or die by. It’s hard to believe, when we sit down and think about it, that Munster are reaching the end of a decade in which they have not truly counted. In many ways it’s unpardonable, and watching a team walk from ‘Warriors’ to ‘Also-rans’ will soon need to be properly addressed by the IRFU, win or lose this afternoon.