Any self-respecting burglar living in Munster who didn't fill bag after bag of swag yesterday ought really to consider taking up a day job. Because given the ocean of red that swirled around the streets of Cardiff this weekend, given the lengths of the queues for everything from cashpoints to paninis to pints, it's hard to see how there could have been anyone left at home.

And they all got here somehow. There were horror stories of 500-yard queues at the train station in Bristol, and of a convoy of buses gridlocked outside Swansea. But people got here.

The best story belonged to a Corkman called Roy Hegarty. He had nothing organised all week and found himself resigned to watching it at home. But on Friday night, sitting in a pub in Cork, he came across four Dublin lads who had places booked on the overnight Cork to Swansea ferry and who were about to cancel. So he got their reference numbers and used one of them to get on the ferry.

Along the way, he asked everyone he saw if they had a spare ticket until he eventually came across one. He had nowhere to stay last night and no way of getting home today. But as he stood with a pint in his hand in the Prince of Wales Arms, still wearing the clothes he left the house in on Friday afternoon, he was fairly sure it would all work out.

Folk are resourceful like that and by hook or by hitchhike they all made it safe and sound. Actually, maybe sound is stretching it a bit. The mood before the game was anything but sound. A Martian landing in Cardiff yesterday and finding the Munster fans spilling out of the pubs would have had no option but to conclude that these Irish are a pretty grim lot. There was little craic to be had, much less any ceol. People were just too nervous.

Conor Quirke from Cork pretty much summed it up.

"This is no fun. I've been like this all week. I was at nothing at work on Thursday, just worrying about it. It's stupid, like. I was watching the Champions League final on Wednesday night and caught myself drifting off at one stage, thinking how great it would be if O'Connell caught the first line-out. Mad stuff."

By midday, it was becoming unbearable. You could see people checking their watches every five minutes wondering if it was too early to head to the stadium. It was.

But that didn't stop them.

Anything beat standing around in pubs that were stuffed to the doors, queuing for pints you couldn't drink, making small talk you had no interest in.

Siobhan Kelly from Limerick was holding an open Moet & Chandon bottle in her hand.

Some red-shirted worriers upbraided her for jinxing the whole thing. "Ah, don't worry lads . . . it's vodka and cranberry juice. I poured the champagne down the toilet."

It was that kind of day. Until the game began.