TWELVE months ago, former Kerry footballer, or legend as we've been advised to call him, Mickey Ned O'Sullivan travelled to South Africa to lend a helping hand to the Blue Bulls, the rather confusing title of Pretoria's Super 14 franchise. O'Sullivan's main brief during his week with Die Blou Bulle was to educate the players on the art of catching the ball, not just at waist height, as they've been conditioned to do, but also above the head, to allow a greater opportunity to slip the ball away in contact.

The ironic thing was that they didn't need an Irishman to show them how to do it. If the Blue Bulls coaching staff had been keeping an eye on European rugby over the past couple of years, they'd have known to call on one of their own to educate them in the art of securing a missile from the sky. Because right now, and indeed ever since he joined Munster from Swansea in the close-season of 2003, Shaun Payne, the South African with the Irish passport, has been king of the European skies, gobbling up close to every garryowen that's been launched down his throat. You'd compare him to a seal during feeding time at the zoo, devouring every fish thrown in his direction, only for the fact that he's a little more graceful than that.

As is his way, his manner, Payne is a touch shy about many of the plaudits that have flowed in his direction following a couple of exceptional fielding performances in Munster's away Heineken Cup victories against Leicester and Cardiff. On both of those preChristmas Sunday afternoons, there were a number of common dominators, namely the driving rain throughout the 80 minutes, the physically tough and mentally strong nature of Munster's performances and the uncanny ability of Payne to not only magically appear under the numerous bombs aimed towards the Munster 22, but to also catch them cleanly, hit the deck and recycle possession for his side.

"It's got to a stage this season that I'm keeping an eye on the weather three days out from a game to see what it's going to be like, " he says in the true manner of a man used to a kinder climate. "The rain doesn't bother me so much, it's more the wind. Rain on its own you can cope with, but when it's mixed with wind it makes things difficult. What I wouldn't give for some summer rugby right now."

When you put it to him that he seems to be doing just fine in both the wind and the rain, he insists it's something he's had to adapt to since leaving his homeland, and the Natal Sharks, back in 1999. "I don't think I would have viewed catching the ball as a strength before I came to Europe, " he admits, "but then again there weren't that many high balls to deal with in South Africa, first of all because I played a lot of my rugby on the wing and also because it wasn't a tactic used that often. Since coming to Europe it's an area of the game I've worked on hard but it's not as straight forward as people think. There's always a bit of luck involved, sometimes you catch the ball and it bobbles, but instead of dropping out of your hands and going forward, it stays within your grasp. You do that a couple of times and people start saying you're good at it. But you need a bit of luck.

I suppose the best thing I can say about it at the moment is that I have confidence in that part of my game."

For confidence, read mental toughness.

Watch any game of rugby and it's always the mentally supine who cower under the high ball and Payne is anything but. In possession, he shows as scant a regard for his own well being as he does in the tackle, a steely trait that immediately endeared him to a Munster rugby public who effectively judge the worth or otherwise of imports on their willingness to put their body on the line for the cause. His strength of character emanates, you sense, not just from growing up in a quarrelsome South Africa, but also his 18-month spell in his country's Air Force. "Conscription existed back then, " he says, "and while I certainly wouldn't have joined the army by choice, it was a period during which I developed a lot physically. We were up in choppers a lot but you'd have to train for about seven years to become a pilot. As a 19- or 20-year-old, as you can imagine, it was pretty exciting but there were other sides to it that weren't so nice."

It's not a topic he's keen to expand on, but the funny thing is that if Payne was actually the age most people think he is, he'd have missed out on conscription - abolished by the South African government in August 1993 - altogether. A highly scientific straw poll conducted on the full-back's age by the Sunday Tribune during the week threw up answers ranging from between 28 and 32; the truth of the matter is that he turns a ripe 35 towards the end of February. "I'd like you to thank the people who said I'm 28, " he says with a laugh.

"The strange thing is that I feel an awful lot better this season than last. Last year I had a bout of pneumonia which put me on a downer for two or three months but this year I feel as fit as I've ever done."

Payne puts a lot of it down to the training at the province. "The fitness and conditioning are completely personalised, you know, guys in my condition, the old guys, don't do as many reps on a specific exercise as the younger fellas, we might skip some aspects of physical training altogether. The philosophy is that it's not really about the quantity of work you do, but rather the quality."

He's been enthused by Munster's Heineken Cup form this season, the way they've coped with the mantle of European champions, and particularly how they've become far more confident in playing the game more expansively. "We've been trying to expand our game over the past three years and this year we've moved things a little wider still. We'd be known as a team with big forwards who like to maul, but things have changed. It started with Alan Gaffney, who was very focused on the skills element of the game but the change has been led by the players in the recent past. Rog (Ronan O'Gara) has really taken charge of things in that part of the game, and I think we have a lot more options out wide thanks to the arrival of Trevor (Halstead) and Barry (Murphy) on the scene. We've got a lot of talent out wide and if this season has shown anything it's that we've not been afraid to use it."

With his contract up at the end of the season, he's spoken with the Munster Branch about another year on the scene but nothing's been finalised as of yet.

His way of looking at things appears remarkably selfless. "In terms of a pure rugby decision, I'd like to keep going, " he admits with a little persuasion. "But I wouldn't want to do anything that would damage Munster rugby, you know, I wouldn't like to hang around for another year if I was getting in the way of the development of a young guy coming through the ranks. On the other hand, if I felt that I could help that young player in some form or other, I'd stick around. I want what's best for Munster in a rugby sense, but you also have to look after the rest of your life."

In the past, he's spoken of returning to South Africa with his wife Michelle and children Dylan and Amy, setting up home in Cape Town or some such spot, but there's certainly a draw towards Killaloe - technically County Clare but just 15 minutes from Limerick City - where he's made his home, and maybe even a coaching role somewhere down the line. At the start of the season, he accepted an offer to help out with the backs at AIB League Division Two side Thomond, a role that he's really taken to. "It has surprised me, because I didn't think it was for me. I've really enjoyed it. I thought that sitting on the sideline and shouting at fellas for dropping balls wouldn't be my kind of thing but I've enjoyed it. The frustrating thing is that I haven't been to any games yet, because of my involvement with Munster, but it's something I might think about doing in the future. But definitely not straight away after retirement."

He might, after all, want the opportunity to escape the wind and rain for a little while.