In Conversation With Donncha
19th January 2005 By Munster Rugby
In Conversation With Donncha
Donncha O’Callaghan is currently with his Munster colleagues at national camp in City West.
“We arrived here on Sunday, got home that afternoon just for long enough to get a change of clothes and then it was back up to Dublin for the few days at the national camp.
“We go down home again on Wednesday night and have a few days to ourselves before returning to City West. Some of the lads are heading off for but I ll stay around home. It ll be good to just put the feet up, do a bit of gardening. Take the dog for a walk. Things like that. Which reminds me, where is the dog. Haven t seen ‘im for a while.
“I’m meant to go back to my old school to do a radio show with some of the students. That should be some crack. Then myself and few of the lads, Leamy, John Kelly, will be in Dunnes Stores in Douglas on Friday morning for a Glanbia/Avomore promotion.
But one thing I m really looking forward to is the Garda inter community soccer tournament at The Mardyke on Thursday. Munster had a team in it last year. I heard they were useless. Gaillimh (Mick Galwey) and my brother Ultan played. Bet out the door they were. But this time around the word is that George Murray our video analyst is playing and Geraghty our Press Officer, Nick Green the physio. Now that should be a laugh. Not to be missed.
“Going back to the match last weekend. It was amazing really. The re-action like. I mean in the dressing room afterwards, it was almost as if we d lost. I m there thinking. Hey we re in the quarter finals of the Heineken Cup and all around me fellas are quiet, no sense of elation, no much celebrating. You d be almost afraid to smile.
“Yeh I know we didn t play well in the second half. Or we didn’t play well enough to get the bonus point. But you have to give credit to Harlequins. They were never going to roll over and die. They played the sort of game that made it very difficult for us to get our game going. We were good in the line-out but ever time we started to maul it up, they managed to bring us to ground. I d say how they stopped us was marginal but fair play to them they got away with it.
“I suppose it was the expectation everyone had. Before the game all the talk was of Munster getting the bonus and home advantage in the quarters. When we didn t it was a case of waiting to see how other results went. In the end when we were travelling home on Sunday we flew out of Heathrow knowing that if Gloucester beat Stade we d have a home quarter. Have to say, thought there was a good chance of that. So when we heard the final result, 27-0 to Stade, well never mind the surprise, we knew we were on our way to the south of France.
“From our point of view, we just have to get on with it. No game is easy at this stage of the competition. But what does concern us is that it means our supporters must go to the expense of getting to Biarritz and that could have been avoided if we d got that home quarter .
“Anyway, nothing can be done about that now. Hopefully we can go out there and give a proper account of ourselves. That ll be uppermost in our minds and if we do, then we might just surprise all those who are writing us off.”