Your boys took one hell of a beating. Your boys took one hell of a beating. Not really. Munster were holed below the water line last Friday evening, yet still managed to stay afloat. A four-try bonuspoint performance doesn't constitute a thrashing any more and at the end of it all, in a match where Munster were utterly toothless behind and didn't have the defensive capabilities to stop anything Leinster wished to throw at them, they were only seven points away from their conquerors at the finish. This can be attributed to the type of blood that courses through most of the Munster players' veins. They just don't lie down. Leinster, for their part, displayed some of their idiosyncratic deficiencies and should really have finished in a far better position points-wise.

For the 27,000-odd who pitched up, their patronage was richly rewarded. It was a cracking game. From a playing perspective, improvement is required in both sides and none more urgently than at lineout time. Leinster won 20 per cent of their own line-out ball and picked off quite a number of Munster's which would artificially inflate their total. Either way both sides lost about seven on their own put-in which is a criminal offence. If you consider that an average professional side can keep the ball for at least two minutes from line-out play, that means if you lose seven or eight line-out throws, you don't have the ball for 15 minutes when you should have it. It makes winning extremely difficult.

Leinster's whole amalgam is wrong.

Everything from the delivery of the call, communication to all the players, the lineout set-up, the throw, the timing of the throw, the movement up and down the line, and the ability even to get players into the air is highly dysfunctional and needs urgent attention. The priority now is to win line-out ball of any quality at any cost.

Reggie Corrigan had a oneyear contract last year. He received another one-year contract this year and it's generally perceived that at his age he is running down the clock on his career. He has been very uncharitably given the nickname 'Harvey Norman', one year, no interest. One of the things that Corrigan can do as a converted second row is lift his jumpers higher into the air than the two short arses that are there. Will Green and Ronan McCormack struggle to get their jumpers any height and from Munster's perspective the temporary loss of John Hayes at 6'4" is equally detrimental. These guys have the height and strength to throw their jumpers high, giving a decided advantage.

From Leinster's perspective, they managed to counter Munster at the breakdown. Any time there was slow ball, they did a mini-maul around the side with two or three players patiently picking and going. It meant that unlike the Heineken semi-final, David Wallace and Denis Leamy could not spend most of their time waiting in midfield for Leinster's dynamos to run at them and they were sucked back in towards the contact zone which left their toothless backs facing one-on-ones and with some of Leinster's three-quarters on fire they couldn't handle the heat.

The second element to this match was the amount of naked aggression, foul play and niggle which permeated throughout.

It's a fact of life in these matches and most combatants are very aware of the rules of engagement. No quarter asked or given.

From that perspective it was highly disappointing to have as weak a referee as Stephen McDowell in the middle of all this because he really did have a very, very poor game.

When you're looking at sport you should never mistake petulance for aggression and it was uplifting to see that the two leaders on both sides were involved in the moment of the match where the full parameters of the physical nature of rugby union came to pass. In the 20th minute after some left-to-right helter-skelter, Ronan O'Gara threw a pass to Paul O'Connell in an attacking position in Leinster's half. Brian Blaney and Ronan McCormack were directly in front of the oncoming O'Connell and defensively were in a position to make a tackle. Leinster's captain Brian O'Driscoll came screaming in on a diagonal line from outside and cut him stone dead. As a statement of intent to his teammates, it couldn't have been made any clearer. O'Connell knocked the ball forward as a result of the force of the tackle. O'Driscoll got up and it said everything about what Leinster would do on Friday evening. In terms of conflict, it was one of the few legal challenges of note.

O'Connell himself had been found on the wrong side of a ruck. He made no attempt to roll away and McCormack, without actually looking down at him, shoed him twice. It was innocuous, it wasn't dangerous and to yellow card him was the wrong decision. The yellow card that followed it demonstrated the worst elements in rugby union.

Felipe Contepomi was sin-binned shortly afterwards. In my mind it was a dreadful decision. As Leinster attacked Munster down the right-hand side, Contepomi fed Shane Horgan as he cut close to the touchline. As he fed the ball, Donncha O'Callaghan, who had been shadowing him, grabbed Contepomi, who at this stage did not have the ball. Horgan made three or four yards' progress. O'Callaghan held on to Contepomi for 10 seconds. After seven seconds, Contepomi, who had been protesting to the touch judge who was no more than feet away, struggled and tried to push off O'Callaghan by moving his left arm up high. Three seconds later, he hit O'Callaghan a respectable slap in the face.

O'Callaghan went down like a sack of potatoes. The two officials deliberated and Contepomi was binned. Most people watching on television would have heard what they said. This is what touch judge Marshall Kilgore should have said: "Red number four takes out blue number 10, the ruck had been formed, red number four is five yards offside. He is deliberately obstructing and he is playing the man without the ball. Blue number 10 is remonstrating to me but I appear to be paying no attention. Blue number 10 initially throws a weak punch which does not connect with red number four. I continue to ignore this situation which is only a few feet away from me. I did not interject or take action of any kind to this provocation. Eventually, blue number 10 hits red number four and he falls down. Due to my ineffectiveness, foul play has been committed. Blue number 10 has retaliated and the initial foul play has been rewarded."

Weak officiating is inexcusable and given the history of Munster's attempt to antagonise Contepomi, the aggressor will always win. O'Callaghan should have been yellow carded. I thought it was laughable that the Munster medical team came on the field and asked O'Callaghan how many fingers, and watch my finger go from side to side. He got up seconds later, job done, and wandered back to his teammates. Not a bother on him.

Contepomi later in the game tried to chip and chase. The kick was well executed and initially I thought he was well shepherded away from the ball by David Wallace who kept his own eye on the ball while being fully aware of Contepomi's path.

What Contepomi did directly after that was a disgrace and he tried to kick/trip Wallace with his leg. It was a red card offence. But I watched the replay in slow-mo. Halstead was the player who was chipped. He jumped and threw his hands into the air but I think the key moment was what he did with his right knee and leg as Contepomi came through and I feel this was the obstruction and the antagonism which Contepomi lashed out at.

There were five or six other unsavoury moments which were dealt with in an unsatisfactory manner. This match was too important and could have got out of control and I would have been far happier if a stronger referee, who would have been aware of the simmering tensions and would have taken a far stronger line, had done the job.

Both teams will improve before the Heineken Cup. They'll have to.