Dreyfus, the marine biologist, amid the mayhem pauses momentarily for contemplation . . . a fairly succinct summation follows but he says it under his breath. "We're going to need a bigger boat."

I thought it was classic . . . he knew straight away what he was facing. Leinster, the great white hopes, probably knew from the first whistle against Munster that they didn't have the right equipment either.

They got badly chewed up but on reflection didn't get eaten alive. We still have 19 years, 11 months and two weeks to mull over this match . . . much less if Munster don't go on and win the final. I have to say I've gone a little bit bearish on them. Quite apart from the next fortnight being quite tricky I just think that the Perpignan and Leinster games were food and drink to them. In essence, easy to negotiate with no unthinkable complexity needed to work their opponents out. They were lucky to a degree against Perpignan and the result was never really in doubt against Leinster. But they didn't have the cutting edge to close out Leinster, particularly when their close-in hand-to-hand combat stuff didn't yield a score during the third quarter and herein was their problem.

It was made easy by the fact that Leinster couldn't even really hold onto the ball long enough to stretch Munster or generate a punch-go-punch for some quick ball.

If only one of the Leinster three-quarters had gone into a huddle to say "look lads, we are playing against Rob Henderson on one leg who hasn't played a game in one year and a handy South African who has two gears . . .

slow and reverse. Please, please, please get us one quick ball and we'll cut them open."

It never happened. Leinster tried to get Jamie Heaslip running and they managed it a couple of times but it was fairly contrived and predictable. It was a contradictory ploy in the sense that when he was grounded, it was O'Driscoll and D'Arcy who had to go in and ruck the ball. What was the point?

I gave the Munster backroom team a fair bit of credit for formulating their winning strategy. Again, in hindsight it was obvious that Munster could handle the Leinster eight with just seven men.

Galling so that they couldn't get quick ball. But just in case, Munster sent a mine layer into the Leinster midfield.

Impotence is nature's way of saying "no hard feelings". The Leinster three-quarters flaccidity was down in no small part to the presence of David Wallace on an almost permanent basis. Spatial awareness, running lines and movement to try and fix the drift are made redundant by having an extra man in midfield . . . Munster could take chances knowing that there was an extra man to cover them.

The Munster back-room team wouldn't dare perpetrate the same sleight on Biarritz who will be an entirely different proposition . . . the French champions are top of the league and the best pack in France . . . it could be the lowest scoring final in history. That is if they finally decide to introduce a ball.

Mauling will be a key ploy in fashioning dominance for one of the sides. It is one of the more intriguing aspects to Leinster's performance. They never got a phalanx going once. Not that they couldn't . . .

they never tried to. The pill was like a live grenade at lineout time. It was obviously not part of the game plan.

Leinster though had profited marvellously against Bath at the Rec and Toulouse at Le Stadium from brilliantlyconceived and formed mauls that tore out the heart of both packs. Just a little pointer to say that Leinster's 'brittle' eight easily outplayed both of those highly-rated packs when they had to at the serious end of the competition. We all boil at different degrees . . . maybe the oestrogen coursing through their veins never reached motivation point.

The first half was the time to maul for Leinster. You would have thought that going into the second half with a stiff enough wind behind them and only 13 points down you wouldn't need to bother with mauling . . . "let's just try and play a bit of footy" . . . but it also spoke volumes to the Munster pack. All eight of them thought: "Hey, they are not going to bother taking us on . . . happy days."

It was galling to see Leinster opt to use their maul against the Ospreys last Saturday week. You can't just ignore what most of Leinster would have conceded was a physically superior force. You can't just try and play around Munster. You had to confront them and that is why Leinster failed. Biarritz will have no problem fronting up to