As next Saturday's Heineken Cup final at Lansdowne Road nears, it will be hard for Leinster and Munster - supporters, management and players alike - not to think wistfully of what might have been. C'est la vie? No. More likely, "Damn it, it should have been us."
In this there will assuredly be echoes of the 1999 World Cup quarter-final at Lansdowne Road between France and Argentina, four days after Ireland's defeat to the Pumas in Lens. No tickets were available from a closed 62 Lansdowne Road on the day, despite vast swathes of empty seats, and for the first half-hour it seemed as if those who were there were like reluctant guests to a party where they didn't know the hosts. Then, gradually, the crowd awoke to the fact the leg-weary Pumas were warming to their task and that one of the best matches of the tournament was unfolding in front of our eyes.
A major difference this time is there's been a four-week gap, as opposed to four days. This has afforded Irish rugby, and primarily Munster and Leinster, more time to overcome their disappointment, although this seems to be a far more painstaking process for the latter.
Even before the semi-final defeat to Perpignan, Matt Williams had contrived to alienate a chunk of Irish supporters with his complaints of perceived media bias in favour of Munster and against Leinster, which has continued and apparently now includes all of us in the press box.
Collectively, Leinster seemed to become far too paranoid about perceived Munster favouritism in the media even before the semi-final, and it did them no favours. In any case, Munster's higher standing exists nationwide, even amongst sports fans in Leinster. They've earned it over more games, and nothing about the nature of the two semi-final defeats did anything to change that.
There was a residual anger about the nature of Leinster's defeat, which wasn't the case for Munster's loss in Toulouse. But this wasn't confined just to the press box, nor even the supporters. The players felt it. While Munster's players might have felt they could have kept the ball in hand a little more, there was no real self-reproof about their performance, whereas Leinster's players were livid with themselves. No one knew better than they that they mucked up.
In Leinster there has also been a sense of alienation and disaffection among the fringe players, the self-termed "Women's Auxiliary Balloon Corps". For all the successes of the Williams regime, if there has been one recurring, flawed theme it is that too many eggs were put in the first-choice, 15-man basket. Whatever about the breaking of ranks from the disaffected minority, it's hard to imagine such carping within Munster, with its "no stars" set-up.
The fall-out has done Leinster few favours - incorporating internal rifts, ongoing complaints about the media and player disaffection. Even first-teamers and members of the Balloon Corps think Nathan Spooner, especially, was treated shoddily, and the Leinster management were made abundantly aware of this at yesterday's clear-the-air meetings. Besides, blaming a clutch of unused and seemingly ignored fringe players who've now been dispensed with, much less the media, surely misses the point.
In any event, Leinster supporters felt let down by the semi-final performance, though in truth they weren't much better themselves, and this will be reflected in Saturday's attendance - which ERC optimistically say is on course to be in excess of 20,000 while still publicly aiming for 30,000. But the ERC also have to stand indicted for their greedy ticket pricing for the semi-final, in comparison to the more imaginative Leinster Branch pricing for the quarter-final.
Perhaps this merely underlines how lucky ERC have been with previous finals, particularly last year, and how parochial Irish rugby still is, as well as remaining a minority sport outside of Limerick.
But however badly the attendance may reflect on Irish rugby, it looks like it will reflect even worse on the French participants, who will be bringing an anticipated 3,000 fans each. Apparently the Toulouse fans have been baulking at the asking price of about €420 or so for return flights to Dublin. Hmm. One can imagine the reaction of Munster supporters. It's hard to credit the passion of the Stade Toulousain and USAP Perpignan supporters on the days they were at home to Munster in this season's European Cup with their apparently lukewarm response to the notion of travelling to Dublin to support their team in a European Cup final.
Imagine the scenario of two Irish provinces contesting a final in Paris or Toulouse, and it's hard to think that a combined tally of merely 6,000 would make the trip. Sympathy for the French, and especially Toulouse (population 800,000 and the best-supported "home" team in France), has been tempered by their own apparent off-pitch performance in the intervening few weeks since the semi-final.
Toulouse have used their €45,000 ERC grant toward funding their squad's travelling costs rather than supporters, whereas Perpignan have marketed the final imaginatively, by linking local wines with a French food fare which is coming to Dublin this week.
In a sense, the pretty dismal response of the French rugby public, and especially the supporters of Toulouse, is another example of how surprisingly insular French rugby has been during the history of the European Cup, though Perpignan, with their incoming clutch of new signings, are clearly using the cup as a carrot for new players and a springboard for the future.
Unlike the aforementioned World Cup quarter-final, when the IRFU did little or nothing to promote the game, on Saturday the Liffey, Grafton Street, St Stephen's Green and elsewhere will be festooned in Heineken Cup bunting.
Mind you if the French can't be bothered supporting next Saturday's final, then it might be legitimately asked: why should the Irish? Well, because we shouldn't be so parochical, because European Cup finals in any sport don't swing by here very often, at €17 a head (for packages of four) it's good value, it might be half a dozen years before we see another one, and it might be a damn fine match.
