Emmet Moloney writes for the 'Farmers Journal' and is a former sports columnist with 'The Kerryman'.

Emmet Moloney is a proud Munster man, but he’s picking Leinster to win on Saturday.
Sacrilege or pessimism? Either way, he’ll be going against the rugby grain.

We live in strange times. Wonderful times on the rugby front. Not so wonderful everywhere else. Good news is in short supply, but our rugby players are providing it. Our country and our provinces have never had it so good. But it can’t last. We should be savouring it.

That’s why Saturday is such a big day for us. Our best rugby players are getting a chance to play each other in our best stadium. Grand Slam champions and Lions will mingle with 82,500 spectators. And it’s all Irish. This wasn’t what we had in mind when we opened Croke Park, but it is the bonus we all need and deserve.

It’s funny that rugby is the sport that has bucked the recession and given us a badly needed escape from reality. The game is based on money; it always was, and some time down the road, it will probably struggle. When that happens, we look back on this weekend as Offaly, Wexford and Clare look back on the mid-’90s. This is a special time.
To the match itself now, and the reasons why I think Leinster will win. Hardly any of these reasons are based on actual rugby. Most of them are hunch-related, and deal with the six inches between the ears. They all assume that Leinster turn up on Saturday with the bit between their teeth.

That’s a big assumption, but they are due a performance against Munster. They owe Munster a real game, and in a real game, they have a few fellas more than capable of winning it. They have points to prove all over the field and, for players like Phil-Eeep-A, this could be the last chance to do it.

Motivation is a quare thing. I am always amazed when I hear teams talk about insults or slights against them after they win the big one. The opposing manager or a player said something innocent, and it makes everyone play better. I have personal experience here. Once upon a time, I worked with an Irish newspaper in London. Back then, we couldn’t afford to send reporters to London football matches in Ireland. We worked out an arrangement whereby the manager of the London footballers, a wily Kerryman, would come into our office on the Monday night and write the match report. We put another name on the report, and no one was the wiser.

Towards the end of the season, London hadn’t won a match, and the manager was in trouble. After a bad loss in Carlow on the Sunday, he came in to write the report on a Monday night. He was mad with the players, and he fired off a fairly angry thousand words. They were this, they were that. Vicious insults were hurled at them. Their manhood was questioned. He asked if London should ever be allowed to play National Football again.

But his name wasn’t on it. That Sunday, they played Wicklow and needed to win. I happened to be outside the dressing room when he gave his pre-match team talk.
“Look at what that f***** wrote about us,” was just the start. He had copies of the paper for everyone. Every line was brought up. “Are ye going to take this lying down?” he thundered. They took the hinges off the door on the way out, and beat Wicklow.

Look at Waterford after reading Brian Corcoran’s book. Look at Clare, still talking about Nicky English’s perceived slight back in 1993. Did you see Kilkenny letting Cork know the last two All-Irelands were won by the best team, not lost by a team that wasn’t “prepared properly”? The Cats destroyed the Rebels for a reason in Nowlan Park last month. Messages were being sent. Markers were being laid down. It was personal.
Yes, motivation is a quare thing. It’s a useful tool, because it plays on the vanities of the people involved. Players are human, and they can be got at. Contepomi is a case in point. He has repeatedly let Munster men get in his ear, face and head. It has affected his game, and helped Munster win theirs.

But you can only go to the well so often. Phil-Eeep-A will have his moments, and in his last serious match – possibly – for Leinster, I suspect he will deliver. So too could Malcolm O’Kelly, a player who played no part in the Grand Slam. A player who suffers in comparison to Paul O’Connell and Donnacha O’Callaghan. Ditto Leo Cullen, Shane Jennings, Shane Horgan, Gordon D’Arcy and their ilk. These guys aren’t Lions, and have spent the last few seasons hearing why they aren’t as good as Munster, hearing why they don’t perform when the big stage calls and, most of all, hearing that they are bottlers. That’s a dangerous mental concoction, and could squeeze a huge effort out of them come Saturday.

They are up against the greatest rugby team of all time. That’s what it must feel like, and that’s what we in Munster think. Put the All Blacks into Thomond against our first team, and we’d bate them out the gate. We believe that. We know that. But these last few weeks, Munster have been too good. The sheer clinical nature of their rugby has hidden a few defensive frailties. It seems they have scored every time they hit the opposing 22. Earls looks like he could dodge a brick wall right now. For sure, they look unbeatable. But of course, that’s usually the day it all comes apart. I am nervous for them. They are due a dodgy 80 minutes.

Leinster will make this a game of inches. That should play into Munster hands, but recently the Men in Red are embracing the Champagne approach to the game. And it’s been working. The trenches are calling, and Leinster’s troops will have a touch of the kamikaze about them. Danger here.

The weakest link in the Leinster armoury is their scrum half, and ultimately he may cost them the game. Chris Whitaker, for all his fine and brave qualities, takes a step before he passes the ball. Watch him on Saturday night. That step takes away a split second from Contepomi, D’Arcy and O’Driscoll. It can be fatal, because the Munster midfield is a place where Leinster could get some joy. Earls and O’Gara are not the best tacklers in the world, but have been getting away with it, thanks to their hard-working back row. Quick ball would exploit that – thankfully for Munster, Whitaker doesn’t provide it.
An easy win for Munster is unlikely. They will be taken to the wire. Drama is guaranteed. Victory is not.

The heart is red. The head is thinking blue.

To catch Emmet's latest column, get 'The Farmers' Journal' every Thursday...