Gerry Thornley

1 week ago | irishtimes.com | Gerry Thornley

If Munster are to defy the odds against a Sharks side studded with World Cup winners and X factor in front of a 54,000-capacity crowd in next Saturday’s BKT URC quarter-final at Kings Park in Durban, as ever on such occasions the collective performance will have to add up to more than the sum of their parts. To that end, Munster will again need dip into their reserves of emotional energy.

1 week ago | irishtimes.com | Gerry Thornley

It has been forecast before, and has proven premature, but this is it then. We’re in the very midst of it now. The era of the French. Top 14 clubs are now dominating European rugby like never before and beating them to the trophy has never looked more difficult. Of course there have always been, and always will be, different cycles. Nothing lasts forever. Northampton’s 9-8 win over Munster in 2000 heralded a run of four English winners in a period of five seasons.

1 week ago | irishtimes.com | Gerry Thornley

If Ross Molony had any doubts or even a hint of second thoughts about his move from Leinster, they were certainly dispelled when Bath won the Challenge Cup in the Principality Stadium last Friday night. It may have been a relative consolation prize after Bath were dumped out of the Champions Cup, but the moral of Molony’s story is that it’s better to have won one medal than none at all. Molony used two words to describe the experience. “Class” and “unbelievable”.

1 week ago | irishtimes.com | Gerry Thornley

If it doesn’t break you, it can make you, the saying goes, and certainly it was the kind of experience that might have broken lesser teams. They strained every sinew in reaching their first final last June only to be beaten 59-3 by Toulouse in the biggest game of their history, an embarrassment which lingered throughout last summer and beyond.

2 weeks ago | irishtimes.com | Gerry Thornley

The Champions Cup has a new name on the trophy and a new major force in the European rugby. Strictly speaking, this well-run, superbly supported club have been the coming force for some years now and this spellbinding final merely confirmed the arrival of Bordeaux Bègles among the continent’s elite. The ferocity of the collisions was matched by the ambition of both sides, although a slightly disjointed second period didn’t match the wildly fluctuating end-to-end pattern of the first-half.