When Moss Keane laughs, the floor beneath shudders, as if a great juggernaut has rumbled past the door. The big man fills the room in a way that has little to do with the chiselled shoulders that stretch impossibly like great plains, or the wonderful hands that make his tea cup disappear every time he takes a drink.

Nor is it the facial expressions, vivid and hide-nothing and generous. Nor even the butter rich, carefully preserved Castleisland brogue, baritone and lively and God-given for late nights of storytelling.

No, Moss Keane's presence springs from the easy geniality that seems to have fallen away with the sports stars of a generation ago. Good nature seeps out of him, not in any Holy-Joe way - he defines mischief with his grin - but through a carefree gait that can set a dead room humming.

Like so many lions of yesteryear, Keane's rugby life seems less a dimming montage of tries and scars and silverware than a glowing series of tales and observations and, most chiefly, a succinct lack of regret. The best thing Keane got out of rugby was friendship and that, he says, was more than enough.

He is here because he has agreed to talk about Munster rugby. On the wall is a framed report from the Cork Examiner dating back to November 1st, 1978, the day after "that game" in Thomond Park.

Keane points to the report and photograph, his younger self staring fiercely back at him, an image incarnate of Hopkin's great phrase, big-boned and hardy handsome.

"This a coincidence or something," he inquires gruffly, almost embarrassed by the tribute to the province's win over the All Blacks. "I suppose that is the day all right, I mean if we played them 100 times we probably wouldn't have done it again.

"But then, Munster always had a very good record against touring sides and there was something magical about that day. I can't quite put my finger on it. There was an unwritten obligation, almost, to go out and do something more that day.

"And the All Blacks were kind of set up for it. In September, we played Middlesex in a warm-up game and were beaten by 28 points. The All Blacks had played the best of London counties and won 37-6. So they probably weren't expecting much from us. People said the All Blacks were arrogant.

"But they weren't arrogant, just hard players. Defeat was not in their milieu. They were very upset afterwards. To be honest I got a bit of pleasure out of seeing their feckin' agony. Andy Haden was crying afterwards and I went up to him and said: `we're used to this losing, Andy, you're not'. Sure we could write a feckin' thesis on it."

Although Keane enjoys the occasional nostalgia trip, he has never hankered after what's gone before. He fell into rugby in his own happy-go-lucky way, starting in UCC after winning three Sigerson medals with the football team. He was raw and got burned for it. "Jumping in the scrums and pushing in the lineouts," he laughs.

He began playing at university level around 1972 and, by the summer of 1977, he was playing second row for the Lions. That was a three-and-a-half-month tour and work holidays only covered a few weeks of that.

So he took unpaid leave for two months and toured with the Lions. A year later, he spent a month touring with Ireland and had to take a further two weeks payless leave to go on honeymoon after he returned.

"Sure, what harm was it? Over time, all those sort of things disintegrate, they don't matter. Travel was the bonus then and it was a different thing to what it is now. Today teams travel to a game the night before and leave straight away after.

"We'd go on the morning of a match and stay that evening. Game, bar, home the next day. Today every game seems of fierce importance and the next morning, lads are hanging out of the rafters in gyms again. We'd take 'til about the following Wednesday getting back into it."

MOSS KEANE lifted weights. Once. He abandoned the practice after 10 minutes, culled by boredom. He reckons he stands at about 6 ft 4 in, but has never measured himself. The tallest player he ever encountered was David Gray, who stood at 6 ft 8 in, but the Scot was of gentle disposition and didn't bother Keane unduly. But the physiques that dictate the modern game never cease to amaze him.

"They are all built up and, you know, it's not from mother's cooking. I think it's got to the stage where the field is too small now. If it was the right size in our day, then it can't be right now.

"Players of great flair are always being closed down, teams employ this bloody blanket defence and the midfield gets crowded. I think they should reduce it to 13-a-side. The modern game needs more space."

Not that Keane is stuck in any time warp, maudlin for the days of Gareth Edwards. He remains an avid follower of rugby and today will find him in Newport.

The current Munster players are achieving, he believes, what he and his contemporaries attempted at amateur level. Like the rest of the province, he became captivated by last year's wonderful odyssey and is happy to speak of himself as a fan.

"The thing is, I see a horrible parallel between this Newport game and last year against Northampton. Newport had two tough games recently, against Edinburgh and Cardiff and, even though they lost both, they know where they are.

"Munster are after a long break and they go out into the dark, in a sense. I'm not being pessimistic, but I honestly think they will do extremely well to get anything from the game. That said, they revel in these high-pressure encounters and they have the players to do it."

Although he doesn't state it, it is apparent that Keane has a soft spot for the elder warriors of the pack, Clohessy and Mick Galwey, now among the lone survivors from the amateur era.

"Those lads are interesting alright. They crossed the Menin road. Our generation, well, we were models designed for different courses. Could we have made the transition? Possibly, but when we were playing, we were adhering to an ethos that was around for what, 100 years.

"I'm sure the game is much better now in many respects, but it's possible that something has been lost also. I don't know. You could measure it in the dressingrooms. Dressing-rooms used be great fun. I'd imagine the talk is more about bonuses now than anything."

Keane is indifferent to the recent torrent of cash that has transformed the game. When he was a Lion, the players got an allowance of two pounds a day. Food and drink were all laid on so he used to have a flutter on the local ponies.

"And it worked."

The pocket-money was amusing, but he believes, in retrospect, that the fact the Lions weren't given a cut of the massive gate tolls was "morally and ethically wrong". But finance was for accountancy firms back then. No one even thought to mention it.

When Keane retired in 1985, at the age of 37, it was becoming apparent that monetary issues were going to play an increasing role in the game. In his last years, he worked hardest on his fitness, doing a solitary evening as well as the two regular sessions with Lansdowne.

"No, we did work at it. It would be untrue to say there was this totally cavalier attitude towards fitness or whatever. We did put hours in. Thing is, how hard were we pushing ourselves? Nothing like today I'm sure."

This afternoon in Newport, Moss Keane will watch a sport that is, in essence, a different game to the one he played. Still enjoyable, but different. But Munster is still Munster.

"There is a spirit there that was probably born back in the '50s or '60s. And it's hard to put into words, but it's very real. It's a unifying thing."

Last summer, he was walking one evening when he took a call from a producer who had interviewed him for a documentary on Mick Galwey. The producer was in London and happened to be with Richard Harris.

"He asked me if I'd like a word with him and I said I might as bloody well. I'd never met him. So he asked me if I was still playing and I'd played a game the year before but that I was getting a bit old now. And Harris said to me, `Ara, you're still feckin' young. I'm 70 today'."

Moss Keane throws back his head and guffaws. The actor was right.