The night, though, wouldn't have been complete without that show of thanks. It's better to tie up all the loose ends, especially on an evening when everything else went oh so perfectly. Okay, we'll allow one thread of negativity in all of this but just one.

Castres, already out of contention for a place in the quarter-finals before this game, didn't exactly put their lives on the line in this one. At home, their vociferous supporters expect all that and probably more but they didn't get it on Friday. The body language was poor in the warm up, and once their defensive seal was pierced in the 32nd minute by the Munster maul, their understrength side showed very little appetite for anything other than the final whistle.

But that's the one caution we'll allow because you can only beat what's in front of you and Munster well and truly managed that. No sign of paraskevidekatriaphobia in the ranks on the day that was in it. The statistics, so many of them, tell the tale. A record away win in Europe for the province. Seven tries, a record tally for any away game played by Munster in the competition. Not only that, but at 46-9 it was also a record home defeat for any French side in the Heineken Cup. All achievements to be truly proud of on day when most, . . . even the blindly optimistic . . . held the fear within them somewhere that this game could be the end of the road.

In many ways it could just be the beginning. Of all the positives from the game, and there's a whole catalogue of them, the performances of the novices, Barry Murphy Ian Dowling and even substitute Tomas O'Leary were arguably the ones to take most pleasure from. None had played in a Heineken Cup match in France before yet you'd hardly have guessed.

Murphy was a revelation. He made the Castres midfield defence . . . designed and managed by Dave Ellis, the France defence coach renowned as one of the best in the business . . . appear pathetically amateur. He's a genuine talent and as he lodges experience after experience in the bank, he'll get better still. The fact that Munster have allowed Rob Henderson to join Toulon just goes to prove the faith they have in the 23-yearold.

Another point worthy of note, 14 out of the 15 Munster players that started the game were Irish-qualified, the excellent Trevor Halstead the only exception. How bad.

Aside from the performance of those young guns, the variety present in Munster's game was wonderful and relieving to see. Over the past couple of months they've either taken a one-eyed approach with their pack or tried to play an expansive game before setting up the kind of platform they needed to have any success with it.

But they knew this was win or bust. It had been drilled into them all week.

Win or bust. Win or bust.

Why would you go to Castres?

It's one of those French towns where, you know yourself, if you told the residents the world was going to end tomorrow, they'd still head for that afternoon nap before it all happened. They don't do urgency in this part of the world. If you passed the place on the way to Beziers, Perpignan, even Barcelona if you were stuck for a few quid, well, you'd keep the foot on the pedal until you went through the other side. Even if you needed to visit the toilet. It's not exactly the French Riviera . . . more like France in the day of Marie Antoinette if the truth be told . . . but Munster fans love this part of the country. Really love it. They've been here so many times the maitres d' at the restaurants know their faces instantly. And they're not even pretending to gain a few extra quid in tips. Food, especially at peak time, works by the old nod and wink method in this part of the world and Munster are practically family at this stage.

The wink element of the whole equation is probably superfluous by now.

Did we say family? Maybe we're inaccurate here because most Munster fans have visited this part of the world more than they've popped over to visit their blood relatives at this point in time. Bordeaux 2000. Beziers 2002. Perpignan 2002.

Toulouse 2003. Towns and dates from the past but vivid memories all. They've become attached to the south of France, so much so that a few are even property owners in Perpignan. Well, if you're coming to this part of the world once a year or so you may as well invest. Especially if you can secure a threebed apartment on the waterfront for 100,000. But it's Castres that they've visited most often, five times in all, including their very first trip to these parts back in September 1995.

They know the place inside out, so much so that many over the years have elected to stay in Toulouse over 75km away, to spice things up a little. But they still come, as Friday proved. Two and half thousand of them was the conservative estimate but as with all Munster trips, there seemed to be a hell of a lot more of them in the ground come kick-off. How they got here? It's almost become something of a competition between them all at this stage as to who had the most inventive journey down here.

Carcassone and Toulouse airports are about 70km down the roads, while Perpignan at 120km and Girona, over the border in Spain (or as the locals would like us to say, Catalunya) at 240km down the road, stretch the patience that little bit more.

Only a little, though, because it didn't appear to deter anybody. Many even decided to take full advantage of their wandering into Spanish territory. Stade Pierre-Antoine Friday night, the Nou Camp for Barcelona and Athletic Bilboa last night. Sweet.

And they still believed before the game, no doubt, even if their ambitions for the rest of the season are somewhat dulled. "We mightn't go that far this year, " said Mark Murphy from Limerick, "but that doesn't mean we won't travel to games.

Why should it? I know it's a bit of a cliche but we support this team win, lose or draw.

Maybe if we felt the lads weren't putting in the effort things might change but they are and if we're a little short on quality, that's not their fault."

Sure, all nice talk before the game but would you do it?

Would you pay close to 400 to travel on a one-night package deal, get dumped out of your hotel at midday and spent the rest of the day kicking your heels around Castres in the freezing cold? Or would you get up early on Friday morning, fly to Stansted to connect to Carcassone and then pray that the bus that you hired with pidgin French is ready and waiting to bring you down the motorway to get you to the game 30 minutes before kick-off? How about taking a day, maybe two, off work to watch a team play a game that even if they won, may not even help them to qualify for the knock-out stages?

Would you? Would you do it?

There's an audible buzz in the corridor outside the Munster dressing room and no shortage of players ready to spill a few words on what happened out on the field. The team's two primary leaders, Paul O'Connell and Anthony Foley, speak the most sense.

It's no surprise. "Some weeks you have to work hard to keep your standards up but weeks like this one look after themselves, " said the double tryscorer, O'Connell. "I'm normally a guy that does a bit of talking during the week but there was no need for me to open my mouth this week.

We knew what we had to do.

There's no doubt we've had some bad performances this year but we've also had some of our best in years too, like the win over Leinster at Musgrave Park or against the Ospreys."

Anthony Foley has been banging that particular tune on his drum these past few weeks and on Friday he finally got a performance to back up his assertions. "I've said all along that some team were going to get a hiding from us and Castres got it out there, " says the captain. "It's the way we've been trying to play in the last three or four weeks but we just weren't executing things properly. We did it at last." With a little help from lady luck it must be said, something that had been deserting their attacking efforts in recent weeks.

"Passes seemed to stick out there, " says Foley, "The little chips popped into the hands of the lads running on to it, that sort of thing. But I'd be an awful lot more worried if we weren't creating opportunities at all. We are, and now we've shown that we're capable of actually taking them."

Next weekend there's more do-or-die stuff. Sale at Thomond Park, the kind of game the venue, and the city, were designed for it would seem. "It's going to be one of the biggest games in Munster's history, " says O'Connell before adding with a laugh, "Jesus, that kind of thing seems to happen to us once a year at this stage.

They're probably the best team in Europe at this moment in time so we'll see what happens."

A win will, more or less, guarantee Munster a place in the quarter-finals, a bonus point win and they'll more likely than not earn a home quarter-final, even if Lansdowne Road is their designated venue. Still, you can imagine tickets will be just as difficult to come by.

And then there was a word for the fans, always the fans.

"They're incredible, I'd say the 8.30 kick-off time suits them, they've been boozing all day, " the second-row says with another grin. "There was a few bleary eyed fellas out there but the money they spend following us, I know we sound like a broken record at this stage, but it's not lost on us. They give us such a lift on the pitch. These people aren't well off but they've been incredible again today.

Hopefully next week we can give them something to shout about."

Why would you go to Castres?

Why would you not?