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Leinster serve up a Heino to remember

Kiely's in Donnybrook was awash with fans celebrating the team's win, and there was no shortage of goys and goyettes on hand

Michael Clifford

Leinster fans watching the match in Kielo's in Donneybrook

Wexford man Mark Colfer atthe match in Edinburgh

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Kielo's is a fine hostelry in Donnybrook, otherwise known as Kiely's on non-match days. It is to here that the Leinster rugby tribe flocked yesterday, to see their team playing in the Heineken Cup Final in Edinburgh. For those unversed in sport, this is not a drinking competition, but a Europe wide rugby football contest. Yesterday, outside Kielo's, there were signs advertising something called the Heino Cup Final. In Kielo's, Heino is the tipple of choice among the goys, who say right-o and sing alive alive-o, till the Heino runs out.

The Leinster rugby fan is much maligned, mainly because she is caracatured as being exclusively drawn from the alleged odious element to be found in south side, fee paying schools. It's damned unfair that such stereotyping is allowed to fester and spread among the great unwashed.

On the roof of Kielo's, there stood an inflated rugby ball, but if it's hot air you're after, the interior was the place to be. Therein, the goys were agog, beside themselves that the team was about to appear in a final at last. It was no place for sardines, not to mind goys. They pulled in their shoulders, and held their breath as other goys kept coming through the door. And the Sunday Tribune can confirm that many of them do actually wear their collars up.A notice declares that there will be a "free pint of Heino if Leinster win". One of two patrons can be spotted drinking stout, but everybody else is on the Heino. Big screens were set up all around the cavernous hostelry. There was great difficulty in hearing the pre-match analysis. All the goys talked loud. All the womenfolk had perfect teeth. Some of the sardines looked hot and bothered. One man, who might have been a goy, wore a grass skirt over three-quarter length trousers. One woman had a wrist band that the Sunday Tribune detected as bearing the colour of the Dublin Gaelic football team, as opposed to Leinsto. Thankfully, none of the goys noticed this imposter in their midst.

Once the match started, they appeared to all the world like sports fans from normal places. They cheered and groaned in all the right places. Sometimes they got carried away, and their Heino went airbourne, but, for the most part, they had good manners and apologised accordingly.

Even after kick-off, the squeeze was on, as goy-ettes kept coming through the door. They didn't apologise for their lateness. Some of them also wore their collars up. All they knew was that there was, like, a Leinster thing and stuff, going on.

Overall, the anthropological experiment went well. It was life affirming in a strange sort of way.

At the final whistle, or actually just before it when Leinster won a penalty, the place erupted. Grown men hugged each other across their upturned collars.

They are real people, these Heinos. So far, they have been inoffensive, but now that their team has actually won, there is a real chance that the Heino will go to their heads.