Munster v Gloucester stirs ‘Miracle Match’ memories

Investec Champions Cup – Munster v Gloucester

Venue: Pairc Ui Chaoimh, Cork Date: Saturday, 13 December Kick-off: 17:30 GMT

“When I look back, I’ve got so much mileage from running in tries from a couple of yards. If that’s what people can remember, I’m happy enough with that situation.”

Even with a capacity of 45,000, the Pairc Ui Chaoimh venue where Munster will host Gloucester in the Champions Cup on Saturday evening could not hold all those who now claim to have been there when the sides met in 2003.

In reality, there were only 12,500 present in the old Thomond Park for what was quickly dubbed ‘The ‘Miracle Match’.

Yet, like any sporting event where the significance becomes clear only after the fact, many more will now tell you they bore witness to a game that has been mentioned in the same breath as Munster’s 1978 win over the All Blacks.

In what were the glory days of what was then the Heineken Cup, the southern province were runners-up in two of the past three seasons going into the January fixture but, such were the permutations, even their most ardent supporters did not hold out much hope of sneaking a quarter-final place.

For that they needed to score four tries and win by 27 points…all against visitors who arrived as leaders of the English Premiership.

“We were completely written off,” remembers the side’s wing John Kelly.

“The week before, we went to Perpignan and we were really beaten out the gates. Even walking off the pitch, the Perpignan fans booed us we were so bad.

While Munster were still in the process of becoming virtually synonymous with a never-say-die attitude in the face of adversity, before their pair of Heineken Cup victories and three domestic titles across the next eight years, even the players themselves were not contemplating the chances of such an unlikely heist.

“It was never about ‘we need four tries, we need 27 points’. It was never about that,” continues Kelly.

“It was about winning the game, or get out there and get the first try. It wasn’t even get the first try because we needed four, it was just to win the game and beat them.

“At the time, Gloucester were top of the Premiership, they were the gold standard team and they already beat us badly over there.

“They were riding high and expecting to come to Limerick and take our unbeaten [European] record in Thomond Park.”

It was Kelly who got that targeted first score but he cites Mossy Lawlor’s try just before half-time which gave Munster a 16-6 lead at the turn as the key platform for the drama that was to unfold.

A Ronan O’Gara penalty and try from Mick O’Driscoll after 57 minutes left Munster one try and seven points short of the required result, not that players on either side seemed to be aware.

Gloucester’s Ludovic Mercier took a quick tap in front of the posts with 10 minutes remaining when a straightforward penalty would have knocked Munster out of range again, while the hosts appeared no clearer on the necessary margin.

“As the game went on, obviously, we started thinking, well, what do we need to do?” says Kelly.

“I had read the programme beforehand, which said we needed to win by three tries and 21 points, which was completely wrong.

Instead, Munster went for the jugular, getting their reward when they went long in the line-out, kept possession and eventually worked Kelly over in the corner for the required fourth try. With a 25-point lead, it would all come down to O’Gara’s conversion.

“I think Rog has said he knew what he needed to do, but I remember having a conversation with him and he hadn’t a clue. None of us had any idea that the conversion at the end was important,” says the try-scorer.

“It was only [assistant coach] Brian Hickey who was on the sidelines, showing the forwards what we would have to do in terms of trying to get up the field for a drop goal in case Rog missed the conversion.

“Mick O’Driscoll was talking to me in the dressing room after the game and saying, he was looking at Brian Hickey going, ‘what is he on about?’

“It was actually a really good ploy because I think if we were fixated on four tries and 27 points or 28 then we would never have got it.”

An instant classic, the game has since become shrouded in myth, such as the Limerick taxi driver who apparently found Gloucester’s line-out calls in the back of his cab or the visiting blazers who sat down for the post-match function still believing their side had still advanced to the last eight too.

For what it’s worth, Kelly refutes the former but believes the latter. What is undoubted, however, is how the game was become a part of Munster folklore with Kelly a central character in the fabled story.

The province would go on to lose to Toulouse in the semi-finals and would have to wait until 2006 to finally get their hands on European rugby’s top prize. Perhaps, however, it is those 80 minutes that have come to best encapsulate the side’s defining qualities during a golden era.

“It was one of the better days,” says Kelly.

“Paul O’Connell used to say, that you know you’ve had one of those days whenever every joke in the dressing room is funny. It didn’t matter what anyone said that day, it was funny.

Kelly started at outside centre in the 2006 final victory over Biarritz, where the travelling fans who had come to be known as the ‘Red Army’ finally got to see Munster with their hands on the trophy.

“It’s funny, I enjoyed it for I would say 30 to 60 seconds on the pitch, and after that it was an anxious feeling. Not an anti-climax, but an anxious feeling of, did it really happen?” he says.

“Once you had finally achieved this thing you had been going after for so long, it was almost that there was this worry that it hadn’t really happened even though you knew it had, which is a weird feeling.”

A 17-cap Ireland international who featured at the 2003 World Cup in Australia, Kelly retired the year after that long-sought success, hanging up his boots in time for All Black Doug Howlett’s arrival at Thomond Park in November 2007.

“It was only years later that you reflect and look back at it and enjoy it. The transition out of that, it’s a bit of a rude awakening.

“It takes a few years before you kind of move on from it but it’s weird, even now almost 20 years ago at this stage and I’ve been working in professional services these days, but I’ll still wake up some mornings having had a dream that I’ve been playing a match for Munster.

“I’m not bad for a 51-year-old, but I’m certainly not fit enough to play professional rugby, and I’ll have been picked at full-back where I’ve never played.

“In the dream, I just end up thinking, well, I’ll give it a go.”