Trevor Brennan's Diary: Writing this article last night and watching Groundforce, my second favourite programme on television after Top Gear, I can't help noticing that the labourer in the background is always wearing a Munster T-shirt, scarf, jersey or something.

For those who haven't seen the programme, it's an English-based series about transforming domestic gardens and the fella they have digging up patios, mixing up cement and everything, forever has some description of Munster clothing on him. Every now and again he gives out the odd shout of "Munster". It's amazing.

I think the Munster Branch should track this fella down given the amount of free advertising he gives them is massive. They could do worse than give him an official jersey as well, as the T-shirts or jerseys he has on always look fairly worn.

Anyway, it was all to play for this weekend. About 15 teams playing for eight spots. We needed a win against Llanelli on Friday night to get that home quarter-final. Llanelli were a team coming here with nothing to lose and a lot of pride to play for - potentially a dangerous combination.

They could have come to Toulouse as pool leaders had they won at home against ourselves and Northampton, as they could have done and should have. Things didn't go their way in the dying minutes of both games, and against us their kicker just had an off night, otherwise we would have been dead and buried before the end.

I was struggling with a shoulder injury that has been plaguing me for a while, but I played down the extent of the injury as I really wanted to start this game, having been on the bench against Glasgow the week before.

For the team run on Thursday I was the last man out as I was busy getting some extra medication from the Doc - a few anti-inflammatories and pain-killers eased the pain. Guy Noves saw me taking them and he asked me if I had a headache. I paused for a minute and replied that it was a dodgy shoulder.

He asked me how long it had been troubling me, and I told him: "Pendant dix ans." For 10 years. To which he laughed and said "off ye go". But all joking aside, I'm probably not lying when I say that. Every now and again it troubles me.

In the warm-up there were a few laughs and a bit of banter, including myself. But Fabien Pelous did not feel it was appropriate. The lads listened when he spoke. When Pelous speaks, everybody listens. He commands the respect of the players. He spoke in a strong tone, setting the right mood for both the session and the match.

From now on, he reminded us, it was either our last match or the next step toward winning the European Cup, and we really do want to win the European Cup.

Every minute counts from now, he told us, in this competition and we won't get away with turning up for 40 or 50 minutes. We could yet end up playing anybody away from home in the quarter-finals if we didn't beat Llanelli.

Our outhalf, Jean-Frederic Dubois, pulled up injured with a calf injury and had to be ruled out. It was tough having just Frederic Michalak on the bench to bring in!

All the same, he hadn't played in over four weeks since getting injured in the home game against Northampton, but by God didn't "God" arrive come the match. He was brilliant, breaking through the slightest gaps.

We woke up on Friday to a cold and foggy day which lasted through to the night, progressively getting worse. About 15,000 hardy souls turned up, including a good crew from Ireland and Wales. I'll tell you about that later.

The first few minutes didn't go as planned, going down a converted try.

Going forward, Toulouse were magnificent, scoring eight tries, but conceding five. It made a good spectacle for all, but not good Monday morning viewing with a running commentary by Guy Noves about the tries we conceded, as opposed to the ones we scored. There was some crazy stuff, that you might see on a weekly basis, but which you normally don't see in the European Cup.

A few lads from Léin an Bhradáin(Leixlip) were in town. For fear of losing friends, reputations and jobs, the following is the edited version. By the time I met them at 11.30 p.m. that night, they'd probably been drinking since Thursday lunchtime.

One of the lads, Alan Graham, managed to get into the dressing-room after the match. I was sitting in the big bath with Christian Labit, Frederic Michalak and Alfie when all of a sudden I hear this voice shout "Horse Box", my old nickname when I played with Leinster. I looked up and saw him staggering around in the showers.

I asked him how the hell he got into the dressing-room. He showed me his local gym card and explained he flashed it and said he was Irish press over to interview Trevor Brennan and then at the last line of security some one opened the door and he shot through it. So we sat down over a can of the sponsor's brew together.

I'd got them into the match just in front of the drummers and the fella with the air raid horn, Cristian. Boycey having become the best of mates before long with Cristian, he had welts on his hands from having wound up the air raid horn so much; Nidge, Chris, Johnny and Jim were all on the drums and by all accounts had a ball.

That night we went back to De Danu where the Welsh and Irish all mixed well. The Celtic band finished up at about 2 a.m., so Nidge took over with a few lovely mild ballads (edited version again). The Welsh sang Why Why Delilah and one of them, Jim, asked me to help him propose to his girlfriend Jean over the microphone.

He was a determined, stocky Welshman so I turned off the music, turned on the mike, asked everybody to be quiet, and I asked Jean if she would marry Jim. She said yes, so the bottles of champagne were opened.

This was definitely a first for me. I met them the next day and the wedding was still on. I was invited to it, but said I'd only go if I was at the top table next to the priest.

The weekend was much like last weekend's, two days of watching rugby, eating and sleeping. I was surprised by some of the results, like Perpignan losing in Edinburgh. We have Perpignan away next weekend, which will be tough.

The one bad thing to come out of the weekend was that our flanker, Jean Boulhou, dislocated his shoulder with about 10 minutes to go.

He's a very key player for us, a massive lineout man, and at kick-offs, and we're going to be without him for the next six weeks. So I'll probably end up back in the back row myself next weekend.

Until the quarter-finals then, au revoir.

(Trevor Brennan's regular Heineken Cup column can be read on the ERC website, which is at www.ercrugby.com)