The religion of a Munster rugby player

I'm a fan of the Munster Rugby team. On 23rd April 2006 Caroline and I got to see them play Leinster in the semi-final of the European Cup. The match was at Lansdowne Road and it had caught the imagination of the nation. The Munster/Leinster rivalry reached a new level that day.

We had to pick up our tickets from the Radisson Hotel (there is a bit of a story to how we got them). To my delight the team was there. We were one of a small group of fans who clapped them on to their bus as they left for the stadium. It was 'hairs standing on the back of your neck' stuff! Although Caroline is a Dublin girl she was beginning to turn into a Munster fan.

At the stadium it was clear that the Munster supporters were more crafty than their Leinster counterparts - although the allocation of tickets was 50/50 it seemed that there were far more Munster fans than Leinster. We were standing in the South Terrace, in the heart of the Munster end. Before the match the Munster team came out for a warm up. They know how to work the crowd positioning themselves right in front of a sea of supporters. The crowd was rapturous. Caroline was now a Munster fan!

Munster won that match convincingly. My friend Niall, a Leinster supporter, didn't want to talk about it when I called over later that day. A few weeks later they won the competition in Cardiff.

One book produced about their cup campaign entitled 'Munster - Our Road to Glory.' It was the story told by the players themselves. It opens with the following words of Donncha O'Callaghan [one of the team]:

'When I was a boy in Cork, playing rugby for my school, I came across something on the pitch one day after I scored a try. I bent down and picked it up: it was a holy cross, on a chain. I stuffed it into my pocket, I still have it and I've never cleaned it up - there are probably still bits of the Christians stuck to it [his school was Christian Brothers College]. I keep the chain in an old make-up jar my sister gave me. In there I've a few religious things that are important to me. The lads slag me over the jar . . . Every now and then my mum picks up some holy water and puts a bit in there. I consider myself religious. Not in a big way - I'm not a religious freak or anything - but often I take out the jar and say a prayer to give thanks for the great family I have, for everything that has happened to me through rugby, for putting me in a dressing room like ours. . . .
I'd never prayed to ask for anything, but before the Biarritz match [the final] I did. I was about to pray as I normally would, but then I remember thinking, 'Please, just let us win this game.' I almost wanted to say sorry for doing it, for asking about a rugby match. It was possibly the wrong way to feel. But it meant so much to me, my friends and my family.'

There is so much that could be said about Donncha's words. I'd have to start by saying that he comes across as a very soft-hearted and sincere person. His religion is a reminder of the Catholicism that had such influence in Ireland only a couple of decades ago (the fact that the lads slag him about it is a reminder of how non-religious a country Ireland has become). Sadly his views seem superstitious. I am not sure why he thinks he can't ask for things in prayer, although I think he is right to think that it is wrong to be praying for a particular outcome to a rugby match. I presume evangelicals would be among the 'religious freaks' he is so keen to distance himself from. This was certainly a fascinating beginning to what was a very enjoyable book.