There, thinking of the part he'd have played had that broken leg not ended his season back in March. Bobbing along on a minor tributary when he could have been hurtling away on the river. An outsider inside or an insider outside . . . the distinction didn't really matter. Part of it but not part of it.

Until the man who filled his spot caught his eye, broke away from the group and walked over to him taking off his number 13 jersey. "Here, " John Kelly said, handing it to the young centre, "I was only minding it for you."

So that's one way. The other way is John Kelly's way. Strip away the soft focus, dry your eyes, tell it and move on.

"Ah, I think maybe a little bit too much can be read into it, " he says. "For me, the important thing was going out there and winning and I have plenty to remember from that day anyway. I just gave him a jersey. He's a guy who lost out on an awful lot after he broke his leg. If he'd been fit, he would have been playing because his form was so outstanding. He missed out on that experience and a jersey is very little consolation.

"It cost me very little to give it to him.

I'm not saying the jersey means nothing to me, it obviously means something. But at the end of the day, it's just a jersey whereas I got to play in the game. If it cheered Barry up, I'd be quite happy but I know well that if he'd been able to switch places with me, that's what would have made his day. It's a nice story but maybe it's a bit too over-sentimental. It wasn't like I gave him my medal or something like that."

As an exercise in laying bare an essential paradox in the Munster narrative, it's perfect. They serve us up ample ingredients for slush but they do it with the cold eye and steady hand of a sniper. Think back to all the great days, the Gloucesters and the Sales and the Leinsters and so on.

While we who watched fell giddy amidst the mayhem, they who did found a way to keep the pulse at a reasonable level. Neat trick, that.

It's little surprise, then, that when Kelly takes time to go through the time that has passed since 20 May 2006, the story of how Munster got over dealing with living as princes rather than paupers turns into not really very much of a story at all.

"When we got back into it in the summer, it wasn't a conscious thing that we'd left the European Cup behind us, it's just the way it happened. Once pre-season starts, it's forgotten about, it's a new season and you've moved on completely. It's actually pretty straightforward. You start to concentrate on what's in front of you and what your goals are. If you're in pre-season training, it's all about getting as fit as possible. If you're facing into a run of games, it's those games that you're preoccupied with.

"Moving past all the other stuff is done in that way. Reassess your goals, get fit, move on. Like, some of the fitness sessions we were doing in pre-season [at the start of July] were the kind where lads are getting sick during them. They were that tough. Once you get to that stage, the European Cup is long behind you."

The former Derry football manager Eamonn Coleman once had a great saying about the nature of hunger in reigning champions. "You won't know whether they're up for it, " he said, "until them players are atin' grass on their knees in Clones and they say to themselves that maybe enough's enough and it isn't our day." When Kelly sat down with the Tribune on Tuesday afternoon, Munster were lying 10th in the Celtic League after three defeats in their first five games. Even allowing for missing players, even allowing for early season form, it's been an inauspicious start. Easy for people to pick holes in.

The mark of a satisfied team, then? One that's been made to ate grass on their knees and has decided that enough's enough?

"Not at all. I think if you'd been in our team meeting on Monday morning you wouldn't have seen too many guys who are satisfied or fulfilled. We've lost more games in the Celtic League than we should have and the disappointment of that is as big as the disappointment we've had in other years. So it's not like we've reached a comfort zone now and are looking just to cruise through. Ask any of the players and you'll find that every one of them has ambition and wouldn't be there otherwise. If anybody sat back and thought they'd made it, they'd be woken up pretty fast.

"The Celtic League matters big time.

The European Cup is brilliant but it's nine matches at most over the course of a long season. If you went and won those nine matches and lost everything else, it would be a seriously depressing way to spend your year for one thing and you wouldn't win those nine matches anyway because you'd be so demoralised. I don't want to over-dramatise it but I can't remember the last time we were two from five in anything. So we have to turn that around."

Kelly is 32 now and facing into his 10th season of Heineken Cup competition.

From the team in which he made his tournament debut against Cardiff in September 1997, only he, Anthony Foley and Alan Quinlan remain. Beyond the shoulder injury that only got sorted out properly during the summer, he carries around niggles in his back and Achilles tendon and is excused duty in the contact sessions at training from time to time by Declan Kidney. Little adjustments. Put in place to let the days keep on keeping on.

"If you'd asked me when I was 27 if I'd still be playing rugby at 32 I would have said no. I wouldn't have thought so at that stage. But the enjoyment I've been getting out of it over the past few years has been beyond anything that had gone before."

He'll decide over the remaining 18 months of his contract whether he'd like to go looking for another one. What he definitely won't do is keep turning up if he doesn't feel he's adding anything.

By then, who knows where Munster could be? For a team who operate from what Anthony Foley calls the "bitterness bank", it will be interesting to see what level of funds was siphoned off by Cardiff and all that. Foley spoke last week of a bullseye being on their backs now. Kelly has no problem sketching out the circles around it.

"When you win a competition, everybody wants to beat you. We know that better than most from being on the other side of the coin for so long. When we played Leicester the year after we lost to them in the final that was absolutely huge for us. We were just so desperate to win that game. The fact that we're the holders gives teams just one more reason to up their game against us."

Which in turn, we must presume, gives Munster one more reason to up theirs.

Europe, be warned.