AT last. The outpouring of emotion at the end, the sheer unadulterated joy from both Munster player and supporter alike when Peter Stringer hacked the final penalty to touch told you how much it meant to them. Munster have won the Heineken Cup and if everyone at the Millennium Stadium lives to be 150 they'll never forgot 20 May, 2006. It's inscribed in history now and can never be taken away.

Not that they did it the easy way. No, no, they made it unbelievably difficult for themselves by clamming up in the second half when they had a 10-point lead but they just had enough left within them to stop Nicolas Brusque's late break. Had Biarritz scored then the pain would have been unbearable.

But the Basques didn't deserve to win and had Munster kept playing the way they had for the first 50 minutes, they'd have won at a canter.

Their pack was once again immense, Denis Leamy, David Wallace, Donncha O'Callaghan and assorted others put their body and souls on the line, laying the platform for Ronan O'Gara to kick both his penalties and the touchline. Marcus Horan put in an unbelievable 67 minutes for somebody who hasn't played a game in nearly seven weeks, while Man of the Match Peter Stringer put in a truly memorably performance. People are always keen to down him but his all action style has its undoubted merits and he was everywhere Munster needed him.

But it didn't start as bright as it ended, as Biarritz went to the tramlines in the first few minutes just as we had speculated. Dimitri Yachvili released Philippe Bidabe for a run at Kelly and unbelievably, the normally reliable converted centre missed his tackle. From there, the chunky centre released Sereli Bobo down the left who danced his way down the touchline, although it did appear that the Fijian winger shoed the touchline at least once with his left boot on the way. Never the less, touch judge Dave Pearson didn't raise his flag.

At this point even the most optimistic of Munster fans must have been worried but their team's response, if not immediate, was hugely effective. Their maul, or rather Biarritz's illegal disruption of it, allowed them to get a foothold in the game and O'Gara kicked Munster's opening score on eight minutes after Serge Betsen was penalised for doing the necessary.

They kept the pressure up after that opening foray on the scoreboard. An excellent move involving Denis Leamy, Anthony Foley, and John Kelly was only stopped when O'Gara passed forward to Ian Dowling but still they pinned Biarritz back. Betsen was penalised again for dragging down the maul on 12 minutes but Munster, surprisingly, decided to kick for the corner.

They got nowhere on that occasion, or a couple of minutes later when they tried the same trick at the other corner, but just when it looked like it would have been smarter to take a kick at goal on either occasion, they breached the Biarritz rearguard. O'Gara was the inventor of this one, chipping over the French side's defence back in his own half to allow Jerry Flannery and Paul O'Connell to carry Munster forward.

Denis Leamy and David Wallace then had a go as Munster shifted the ball left and with all their forwards buried somewhere on the turf, O'Gara released Halstead on his left and the South African batted aside Bidabe and Jean-Baptiste Gobelet on his way over the line.

O'Gara's conversion gave Munster a 10-7 lead although Yachvili tied that up with a penalty on 24 minutes after Horan was penalised at the scrum. All level, it was still Munster playing the rugby and taking the risks. O'Gara turned down another shot at goal around the half hour mark and this time it reaped a more definite dividend than on the previous two occasions.

After O'Connell collected the line-out, O'Callaghan and Leamy had a go around the fringes and with the ball made unplayable, Munster got the put-in. Then came Peter Stringer's magic. Criticised for lacking a break in his game since he was probably still in the pram, the scrum-half noticed Bobo creeping off his wing and in the blink of an eye, he went right around the scrum and danced over the line untouched. Once the delirium had died down, O'Gara's excellent conversion put Munster seven points up.

They carried that lead to the interval and just 90 seconds after the restart Shaun Payne chased his own up and under and buried Damien Traille in the process. The Biarritz centre was penalised for holding on and O'Gara, from right in front of the posts, extended Munster's lead. Then came the scary period. Munster infringed inside their own half on two occasions between the 50th and 55th minutes and Yachvili did the necessary with both penalties. Neither kick was ever a doubt, but with Munster's lead down to four points, their comfort zone had vanished.

As the game slipped into its final quarter, there was a obvious nervousness around the place and O'Gara didn't help things by missing a couple of easy kicks to touch. The Munster line-out also began to creak a little, while the ball wasn't sticking to hand quite as easily as it had in the firsthalf. Things got ever worse when Yachvili kicked his fourth penalty of the game on 70 minutes and with six minutes of injury time to be played Munster had a single point lead with ten minutes to go. Nightmare stuff.

But then came the guts.

The introduction of Mick O'Driscoll for Anthony Foley shored up the line-out and when Olivier Olibeau came in the side off a ruck bang on 73 minutes, O'Gara stayed calm to restore the four point lead. Room to breath once more. But then Halstead knocked on in midfield and the nerves were frayed once more. Bidabe almost put Brusque away but Biarritz bumped into each other on the front foot and the game was Munster's.

They'll never forget it.

SCORING SEQUENCE 2 mins Bobo try, Yachvili con 0-7 7 mins O'Gara pen, 3-7 16 mins Halstead try, O'Gara con 10-7 22 mins Yachvili pen 10-10 31 mins Stringer try, O'Gara con 17-10 42 mins O'Gara pen 20-10 48 mins Yachvili pen 20-13 50 mins Yachvili pen 20-16 70 mins Yachvili pen 2019 73 mins O'Gara pen 23-19