Munster. Heineken Cup Champions 2006. Whatever will they do with themselves now?

If they'd somehow lost this one . . . after being 20-10 up at one stage, there really is no telling how they'd have recovered from it. No telling how they, their fans, their province would have picked themselves up.

For as we all know, this wasn't just about a team. It was about a tribe.

Before the match, when the Munster side walked off to their dressing room having finished their pre-match warm-up, their timing coincided with the point where Jon Christos, an English tenor, was reaching the crescendo of 'Delilah'. Christos has no mean voice and he was giving it all he had. But the noise that accompanied Munster off the pitch was such that he may as well have been singing in the shower for all the impact he was having on the outside world.

Would that wishing . . . or willing . . . made things so. But justification of Anthony Foley's week-long mantra to the effect that fate owed Munster nothing took only two minutes to sally by and rear its head. The nerves betrayed by Shaun Payne's failure to gather the kick-off were still on the premises as John Kelly and Anthony Horgan got all shook up by Philippe Bidabe on the Munster 22. Kelly got brushed aside, Horgan was sucked in and Bidabe sent Sereli Bobo away for an easy try.

Or was it? Bobo danced on the sideline like a man trying to avoid cracks in a footpath and of the four of his steps that diced with the whitewash, at least one looked for all the world like a transgressor. The kindest that could be said of it is that Bobo's heel hovered over the line and maybe . . . only maybe, mind . . . stayed clean. Whatever. This wasn't the act of thievery the howls that met the big-screen replay suggested it was. And even if larceny had been committed, the insurance company wouldn't have paid out since Munster more or less waved Biarritz in at their leisure.

Looked at now, with streamers falling and Bono banging on about this beautiful day, it's clear that the try was more or less the best thing that could have happened to Munster. A couple of years back, Ireland gave away an early try to Matt Dawson and still came back to beat England and in the aftermath, Paul O'Connell told us how it was. "We went behind the posts, gathered together, let a few f**ks out of us and got on with it."

It's probably safe to assume he said his piece again yesterday. Because with the try . . . and an excellent conversion from Dimitri Yachvili . . . Munster's nerves seemed to evaporate. From there until five minutes into the second half, Biarritz did no more damage to the scoreboard than that brought by a 23rd-minute Yachvili penalty. Declan Kidney's side, by contrast, made the period until half-time utterly their own.

Ronan O'Gara was kicking scoreable penalties to touch after only 10 minutes, there to set up Munster's maul. For a while, it looked a risk that wouldn't pay off as Biarritz stood firm as ancient oaks.

Munster tried throwing it through the hands but nothing was doing until a lucky(ish) break helped them out. O'Gara chipped and chased from inside his own half and the bounce fell kindly for Anthony Horgan to tip the ball back into Jerry Flannery's hands on the halfway line. From there, all it took was two more line-breaks and a couple of quick recycles from Peter Stringer and Trevor Halstead was barging his way past Bidabe and Jean-Baptiste Gobelet to touch down. O'Gara's kick . . .

added to an earlier penalty . . .

made it 10-7.

The Yachvili penalty that made it 10-10 was but a brief interlude, a punctured tyre along the road to glory. And it was Stringer who got the motor running again with a try that was as unpredictable as it was special. Munster had handily reassumed their dominance of Biarritz territory after the equalising penalty and just after the halfhour mark, they had a scrum five metres from the line.

Success in anything is generally the result of a few factors. There's talent, obviously.

And there's luck, to be sure.

But sometimes, what there is more than anything is the wherewithal to choose your moment. Boy, did Stringer choose his.

He doesn't break, you say?

He doesn't snipe? He doesn't take it upon himself to sneak a peek and have a dart?

Turns out he was saving them up especially for this.

Seeing that Bobo had drifted infield to mark the shuffle sideways of Anthony Horgan, Stringer made a dash for the line. There was a pregnant pause, as if nobody could quite believe he'd done it. But he had and he was in and with O'Gara's conversion, Munster were 17-10 up, a lead they held going into the break.

But like we've said many times, they wouldn't be Munster if they couldn't find the hard way to do it. O'Gara kicked another penalty early in the second half to send them 20-10 up but from there on in, the stadium lived on it's nerves. Thirty-four minutes left, Yachvili reduced the deficit to seven. Twenty-nine left, he took it to four. Ten left, ten poxy, measly, horrid minutes left and he reduced it to one. The score stood at 20-19 and it was more than any of us could take.

But a coolly-taken penalty later, some breathing space appeared. And although Biarritz had a couple of attempts to run a try over the line, the tackles went in and the cup was secured. As ever, it was Stringer who kicked into the crowd to seal the deal.

Fitting really, from the man of the match. On a day of heroes, alone he stood.

MATCH REPORT AND REACTION, PAGE 35; NEIL FRANCIS'S ANALYSIS, PAGE 34