European Cup Final: Johnny Watterson talks to Perpignan's number eight, the former Irish Schools' international Phil Murphy

The copper hair amongst a swarthy lot hinted at his provenance. So too the complexion and the first signs of a pinking face. But standing up on the first level of Stade Aime Giral in the early evening Catalan sun, Phil Murphy, the Perpignan number eight was wildly grinning and that told you something. Murphy is probably the only smiling player in this region of southern France. Schoolboyishly excited about the prospect of an all-French final in Lansdowne Road, for the Irish Canadian it's a sort of homecoming.

Murphy is travelling back to Lansdowne Road in a way he could never have imagined. Born in Newfoundland, raised in Nova Scotia, educated in Belfast, based in Toronto and currently billeted in Perpignan his early memories swirl around Lansdowne Road, green shirts and former team mates Marcus Horan, Leo Cullen and David Wallace. His two years as a teenager in Methody were good enough to earn him four Irish Schools caps.

"I spent two years," he says, "my parents offered me the chance to increase my rugby and to give me a better opportunity to get into university in Canada with better study skills and what not. They are from Dublin but the educational system up north was more comparable to Canada. We looked at Blackrock and some of the other colleges in the south but they said I'd have to take (study) Gaelic." Fluent in French after three years of playing, Murphy originally arrived in Perpignan hearing that their number eight was moving west to Biarritz.

"They said the job was mine if I wanted it. The Irish passport helped," he says. Easy as that. The seasons have been good to him but Murphy has now come to the end of his contract and the French club have yet to offer him comfort for next year. There is a slight doubt in his voice, not least of all because they have signed up another number eight, Scott Robinson.

"I've no idea now. I haven't got a new contract," says the Canadian international. "From my understanding Robinson is coming here. I don't know if they want two number eights or if they want to think of myself and Scott, who can play seven or six as well. I'd like to stay but I don't really mind where I play rugby. I just want to play for a good team."

When he arrived in 2000, French rugby was emerging from what they quaintly called a "tough" style but since the advent of the European Cup and exposure to the greater spread of rugby playing nations and less tolerant referees, "tough rugby" has evolved into "champagne rugby".

While Toulouse may be considered the aristocrats of the champagne style, Perpignan remain compelling in their ability to consistently over achieve.

"When I first came here, it (the game) was just getting out of the dirtier side. I'd always been told French rugby was dirty. I guess I got the tail end of that, the fingers in your eyes and people, you know grabbing you in places where they shouldn't even be touching you. That's been phased out. It's very physical up front but then in the backs, week in, week out, they amaze you. Not just in Perpignan, in other clubs as well.

"That's the sort of rugby I enjoy playing. It is what Canada try to play. The only real adjustment I had to make when I came here was the change to playing rugby, eating and resting."

In the splash of sunshine on the older side of the Stade Aime Giral, the players casually fool around in their drills. In shorts and tee shirts, they cast long shadows in the warm light. In the shade, a crane hangs over the new stand as the ground capacity catches up with the growing demand to watch the local side. An old man in rolled up trousers and a mongrel tethered by string walks along the perimeter talking to anyone in his eye line. The stadium doors are wide open for all to wander in. Man and dog look like a fixture. It is a local club with an international appetite and there is little distance between the players and the fans.

"We're going to go out and try to do what we did to Leinster," says Murphy. "We want to defend well and whenever we get the opportunity put points on the board. All through this competition we were not supposed to win. We were not supposed to get out of the Pool Of Death. The only pressure on us is to perform and what we put on ourselves. After Leinster we'd 2,000 supporters waiting for us at Perpignan airport at half past midnight."

Here rugby has the passion and belonging of parish GAA and the possibility of moving club will, in a sense, feel like Murphy is emerging from a closed order. But his contract aside, he has a European Cup final and a World Cup with Canada to fuel his current dreams. Lansdowne Road should rekindle his old ones.