The man showed my brother and I through the door with a few other kids. I was cool, calm and collected and ready to collect. My eyes were temporarily averted from the huge bucket of Lego by something I hadn't expected. We were on full view sitting in the display window at the front of the shop looking out onto the street. I don't do crowds. This unsettled me greatly, not as much though as when the man in the suit said, "fi-ive, fower, dhree, doo, wan - on yer bike". Our gazes connected and he sensed there was an interrogative coming.

"What's wrong son?"

"Why the countdown?"

"Ye've only got 15 minutes."

"But my Empire State Building takes an hour to build."

"Better hurry up ye've only got 14 minutes left."

I jumped into life as the Lego clock hands spun round like a heli rotor. The name of the kid beside me was Darren.

How did how did I know this?

Well, because five hundred of his family members were directly on the other side of the window roaring, "cum awn Dar-idinne" and banging on the glass. Darren and I shared a Lego box of blocks, he consistently got to the better pieces of Lego than I did. We squabbled over five or six blocks which we simultaneously picked up.

I couldn't think, blankness suffocated me. The Da Vinci in me was replaced by De Vito. Three seconds later it was all over. The buzzer went and all I could see in front of me was Liberty Hall - a sevenstorey Liberty Hall!

I was cool, calm and collected alright. Cool - froze on the day, calm - stone dead, collected - in a bucket, I was a whimpering mess.

What made it 10 times worse was that my brother did very well and I was told in the car on the way home that I couldn't handle the pressure.

I wasn't quite sure what was being implied but either way I had found out that pressure effects performance.

I watched Russell Crowe in Gladiator during the week - engaging stuff. Just before he led his troops into battle he reminded them, "what we do in life echoes in eternity" - in effect, fight bravely in the here and now and your standing in the afterlife will be assured.

Two tribes go to war next Sunday, there are places in folklore up for grabs. Some of the gladiators will be heading metaphorically and possibly, quite literally, into the afterlife with happy feelings.

Quite possibly the players with the good feelings in their mind are those that have dealt with the pressure best. To my mind the victor may not be the boldest or the bravest or the best but the one who deals with pressure - a pressure like none of them will have felt in a rugby match before. For all of the participants in this game they will have to deal with a tsunami of overwhelming responsibility. Whichever side says they are relaxed and ready to go is lying because, to a man, they are dreading it.

Not the battle but the implications - each side dare not lose. Expectation alone intensifies the level of pressure. Both sets of supporters expect their team to win, both sets of supporters have already bought thousands of tickets for Cardiff. Both sets of supporters will carry victory as silently as a waiter falling down the stairs with a tray loaded with glasses, and as graciously as an Orange Lodge band leader marching down the Garvaghy Road.

Remember this: it will be a crap match, an error-thon, but we have logged on to ?winatallcosts. ie' so no one cares. It will be a JFK moment as long as you're on the right side of the scoreboard.

So, to the first tentative steps to planning for 23/4 as it has become known. The enormity of it will not have been lost on the first people to go to work on the match.

Emmet Farrell and George Murray played key roles in their sides' victories two weeks ago. Farrell's frame-byframe odyssey pointed out vital idiosyncrasies and weakness in the Toulouse offensive and defensive makeup which ultimately won Leinster the game. The fact that no one defends their tail at line-out time when Nyanga went to the front, the way that Michalak, when he is under pressure to clear, steps to the right and comes back in again, the fact that they leave donkeys in the tram-lines, that they could attack Bru at line-out time and also neutralise Toulouse's maul from its embryonic stages. It all worked.

Munster too did their homework, but Perpignan did theirs even better. Their defence at maul time was as committed and intelligent (and illegal) as I have seen.

Learn how to stop Munster's line-out maul and you can beat them. Perpignan will be kicking themselves, they did more than enough to win that game. I never liked wingers who take place-kicks - too windy when the pressure comes on.

So let's look at the basement block of both video analysts - well, quite frankly, I think both of them can take the week off. Both sides know each other so well I couldn't imagine that either of them can come up with another angle, no matter how obtuse, on an individual or team weakness in either side that they don't know about.

So the video analysts will report to their respective coaches and say, "nothing to report". Again I don't think it will make any difference.

What coach can honestly say, hand on heart, that they will concentrate exclusively on their own game? Because of the lop-sided nature of the contest on the field, ie Munster forwards against the Leinster backs, it will conversely be the Munster backs or the Leinster forwards who will eventually win this game. So what do the coaches do? Will they concentrate on minimising their weaknesses or maximising their strengths?

They shouldn't really bother because strategy will only play a secondary role.

Dogfights are won by the sides that can absorb pressure and make the least mistakes. The winning score will come from a mistake.

Both teams will be aware of this and, as the Llanelli and Edinburgh games have gone by, there is no buffer now, nothing to get in the way of an uncomfortable week where the thought of losing this match and its consequences don't even bear thinking about - they would swap 10 Triple Crowns to come out on the winning side.

I have already grown weary of the hype. The build-up has become as tiresome for the supporters as it is for the players - nobody conceding an inch in the pre-match shadow-boxing, all the while the starting XVs wishing to fast forward it to, say, the last 15 minutes with the match still not in the bag and then see if they can perform with the conviction, resolution and determination needed. And cope with the level of pressure that will reduce many of them to the demeanour of a nervous eight-year-old. I do not envy them. Where is Jack Charlton when you need him?