European Cup Pool One: A special place, and another special day. With Munster here, at Thomond Park, anything is possible, even the impossible; even miracles, although, being the drama kings they are, they don't rush miracles hereabouts.

You sensed it in the air before the kick-off. Even by this old place's standards, the atmosphere crackled as the team made their slow march into the dressing-room after their warm-up. And when they returned for another seismic day, it sure felt as if the earth had moved.

The mist, the lights, the cold, youngsters being helped over the outside walls - there was no pre-match euphoria, but definitely an acute sense of expectation.

There had been talk by one or two newcomers to the shrine about Sale being better from one to 15. Maybe they get it now. It's not about the individual parts; with Munster, there's so much more.

Sucking in the atmosphere and drawing superhuman strength from it, Munster, it is said, play with 16 men, but the Sale director of rugby made the good-natured complaint, "Munster play with 20, with that crowd."

As ever, a big moment or two would maintain and even enhance the collective energy surge.

Some 12 minutes in. Sale had played with a cocky stride in their step. Prince Charlie had made it 3-3.

King Ronan's restart hung in the air an age. Did he deliberately seek out Sebastien Chabal, Sale's human wrecking ball from the first match? Certainly Paul O'Connell did. As "The Caveman" caught the leather, O'Connell didn't so much hit him with perfect timing as lift him in the air and frogmarch him back 20 metres - with a little help from his mates.

It was a seminal moment. Honed out of Munster granite too. From under-12s up, the same principle applies - take out the big guy. Munster sought out poor Sebastien everywhere, and Sale - all macho route one - looked clueless without his hard yards (memo to Andrew Sheridan, Ignacio Fernandez-Lobbe and visiting English sides: don't start a fight in the first five minutes - it only gets everyone's dander up).

From the ensuing lineout, the pack rumbled over for Anthony Foley to score the first try. Thereafter anything was possible, even miracles. The psychic energy was flowing.

Could Barry Murphy and the young guns cope with the heat? Need you ask? A breath of fresh air since he first appeared in the team this season, Murphy will have dreamt of that gather and stunning 50-metre try all night long. And a try like that had been coming.

"It was my first try in Thomond Park for Munster. Fantastic," he said.

He didn't have a contract at the start of this season, but after missing last season through injury reckons he's been more enthusiastic than ever about his training and work.

When the crowd demanded their heroes on the balcony of the main stand, the players returned to sing in unison with the supporters who own this team, before Foley commented, "We've a few more steps to go on this trip yet. Thanks a million."

It's a mystical place alright, even for the players.

Recalling how he was in the crowd watching Donncha O'Callaghan shaking his fist at the end of the first Miracle Match, against Gloucester, Murphy added, "I can see my house looking out from where we were in the stand when I was up there. It's incredible. I was only looking out my bedroom window last night at Thomond Park. Fantastic."

Even O'Connell, who was "on suicide watch" when rooming with Murphy the night before, and who himself used to scale the wall to watch matches here, couldn't stop smiling at Murphy's Boy's Own wonderment at it all. It must have sounded familiar.

Was this the best performance ever by an Irish side in Europe? There's assuredly never been any better than the near 50 minutes of sustained intensity, not least in defence, of that first period, at the end of which, incredibly, Munster were three-quarters of the way toward their four-try, bonus-point win and pool victory.

As the second half ticked by, it gradually became a game within a game, about one try. In truth, Munster did even more work in their own 22 than in Sale's.

"We were on their line eight or nine times and came away with nothing," reflected Philippe Saint-Andre, who like so many coaches before him wore that bemused look of having been hit by a thunderbolt. "They were on our line five times and scored four tries," he said with a Gallic look of bewilderment.

So, Munster rolled up their sleeves and came upfield for one last effort moving into injury time. Why do things simply when there's another chapter to be drawn out dramatically in their rich folklore? Somehow the crowd sensed it, yet when the try came it did so with unexpected ease. Okay, he was at the tail of the preceding lineout, but how was David Wallace so much quicker to the breakdown than any other forward?

Declan Kidney, again, made the point that John Hayes has never won a man-of-the-match award, and he might well have deserved one here. Sheridan does remarkable things in the gym apparently, and at times on the pitch too, but, according to wiser sages than this one, isn't technically that proficient and is in danger of becoming known as a flat-track bully. He certainly didn't bully the Bull. Munster gave as good as they got in the scrums, and Hayes - written off for much of the season - has put together two big games in a row.

O'Connell may have made the most spectacular hit on Chabal, but the men in red were queuing up for him, with the rumblers - Foley, Hayes, Denis Leamy and O'Callaghan - augmenting big steals with unremitting physicality.

"Every time I looked at Chabal I thought Dunners (O'Callaghan) was tackling him today," observed O'Connell. "Hayes the same. Whenever you're at the side of the ruck, Hayes pulls you out; he wants to be in there making the tackles and they're the bits he and Dunners don't get credit for. Incredibly physical, these are big men, but the commitment of our pack was fantastic. A very special day - it's all about working hard.

"There's a fear of losing in the squad. It could be damaging, but it's actually unbelievably motivating. We've spoken about it so often: 'Do we want to be the first guys on a Munster team to lose at Thomond Park in the European Cup?' It makes people play out of their skins."

Every one a hero, as ever on these special days.