MAGNERS LEAGUE LEINSTER V MUNSTER: GAVIN CUMMISKEYtalks to South Africa centre Jean de Villiers who acknowledges he upped his game after the shock of being benched against Perpignan in December

THE ONE-season cameo hasn’t made an impact of Rocky Elsom proportions, the likes of which may never be seen again, but Jean de Villiers has done enough to justify his billing as the prince of inside centres.

Munster players enveloped him as one of the family members when he sliced through two Northampton defenders, off Tomás O’Leary’s delicate pass, for that crucial third try in the Heineken Cup quarter-final at Thomond Park last month.

But, in Munster’s harshly critical environment, such acceptance had to be earned. The bigger the name the more people expected. The Christian Cullen experience ultimately became a massive disappointment for all concerned and there was a similar risk with de Villiers considering his history of injury. Everyone got a little worried initially.

The earliest snapshot of de Villiers in red is Brian O’Driscoll scorching outside him, and then inside Keith Earls, for a scarily good try in that still hard-to-fathom 30-0 destruction Leinster inflicted at the RDS last October. That was only his second match and while no stranger to the big occasions, he had been flat out since the previous spring so the Jean de Villiers in the brochure was not what first pitched up in Limerick.

“Yeah, I knew how important the game was but I think maybe in a way I wasn’t prepared in the way I should have been, mentally.

“I don’t think (the Lions Test series and Tri-Nations) was an excuse. You try and think what it will be like but don’t really know because you haven’t experienced it. We have games back home with the same intensity, same rivalry but this is different. You are playing with different players. At that stage I wasn’t probably part of the team yet, part of the family, as such. From the first day I struggled with form. I struggled to get to grips with the team dynamics.

“No excuses!” he quickly adds. “We were beaten by a stronger team. On the day, they were fantastic and they have shown all year what a great side they are.”

The rocky road back to Dublin has taken from October to May.

It is mental fortitude that ultimately separates the great from the good. When he was walloped with the unfamiliar shock of being benched against Perpignan for the back-to-back pool games in December he was enraged but it wasn’t damaged ego. Lifeimi Mafi and Earls appeared the more potent centre partnership for the Munster management. He came off the bench in Perpignan and ran amok.

“I thought I responded well to that. Maybe it was what I needed at that stage. Maybe I was too much in the comfort zone. Being in the team every time and putting in average performances. Maybe I just needed that kick up the butt.

“They were telling me: ‘That’s not what we want from you, we want more’.

“I got to the stage where I had to prove myself again. If I had to do it over again that is probably the best thing that could have happened to me. Since then my form has gone really well.”

The man has no interest in taking a break. There was enough down time during the Six Nations to venture around the ancient cities of Europe with his fiancée. Injuries have stained enough of his chequered, and at times brilliant, career path anyway and there is only one way to remove the lingering pain of missing the 2003 (ruptured shoulder) and 2007 World Cup campaigns.

He featured in the Springboks’ opening 2007 World Cup match against Samoa before a torn bicep ruined his dream and saw the meteoric rise of Francois Steyn from South African schoolboy to World Cup winning, kicking freak, at just 19.

The South African management will forgive him one season abroad but if he is not home for a World Cup year they may stop paying heed to the 29-year-old.

“That’s definitely the reason I am going back. Let me put it this way first – it is the pinnacle of any rugby player’s career to play in a World Cup. Not a lot of people get that opportunity. If I don’t give myself the opportunity to make the World Cup team I think I would regret it looking back in 10, 15 years’ time.

“Had I been part of the previous World Cup for the whole competition maybe my decision would have been different. Yes, I got a medal back home but it just doesn’t feel that I earned it and did a lot to get one.”

He intends to regain the Springbok number 12 jersey before anyone else lays claim to it. Steyn may also return from Racing Metro in Paris. Either way, he is a fullback now.

They both hope to be back wearing green and gold in three weeks when the world champions come to the Millennium Stadium to face Wales, ruling out his availability to line out for the Barbarians against Ireland on June 4th.

“There are talks of some of us being involved in the Springbok game against Wales in Cardiff on the fifth of June,” he confirmed. “Past that I don’t really know where I will be. Maybe a bit of a break but maybe not if I am required for the Tri-Nations.

“I’ve spoken to the coach (Peter de Villiers) once before and he did mention we will be considered for that game. That gives me an opportunity to stake a claim for the other three Tests and Tri-Nations.”

Speaking to him in the University of Limerick Sports Café this week, de Villiers attempts to explain the season that has just whizzed by.

It was not his fault he didn’t have time to fully understand the whole Leinster-Munster rivalry as the rest of the Irish rugby fraternity have struggled to comprehend these amazing 18 months when everything had been banked.

Well, everything but the Lions Test series in South Africa. De Villiers had a serious role to play in the first Test defeat, sliding under Ugo Moyne’s swan dive in the corner to unhook the ball from the English winger’s grasp and, in near miraculous fashion, deny a certain five points.

He wasn’t blamed for the rampaging Jamie Roberts as the game had opened up by then and every Springbok struggled to contain him. He played against Roberts again last Sunday in Cardiff, 11 months later when de Villiers has barely checked his stride.

“Towards the end of this season I’m feeling so much more comfortable in the team environment. I know it is a little late but . . .”

He has been accepted. If Munster had found a way past Biarritz and gone on to beat the mighty Toulouse, de Villiers would have been serenaded in similar fashion as Elsom. His brilliant turnover that sent Donncha O’Callaghan rumbling down field and Earls eventually skating over for what seemed the start of another Red Letter Day would have been remembered. But it will be forgotten.

However, what happens tonight gives de Villiers the opportunity to write his own Munster epitaph.