Munster’s magic has dried up and the sparkle may sadly be gone for ever

All the best rugby teams are striving for the same things. An identity. A tight-knit culture. An environment in which words, eventually, are superfluous. Where what really matters is not individual ability but the unbreakable bond of togetherness. And where, after a while, winning becomes so natural it feels almost preordained.

Until, that is, the magic dries up. Star players retire or get injured, coaches come and go, supporters grow restless. Worse still, the arch rivals up the road are flying. History, all of a sudden, counts for little. Which is roughly where Munster, once the European Cup’s ultimate feelgood story and guardians of what used to be the continent’s most fabled culture, currently find themselves.

Ahead of their two-legged Champions Cup last-16 collision with Exeter Chiefs, the mind spools back to the great Paul O’Connell’s description of the Munster dressing-room in his aptly-titled autobiography, The Battle. “It was like having the craic in the pub with eight pints on board, except you’re stone cold sober. If a guy broke up with his girlfriend and was really cut up about it, we’d play ‘It’ll be Lonely this Christmas’ at full volume in the gym. When Marcus Horan found out he had a heart condition … we decided he needed to hear Feargal Sharkey singing ‘A good heart these days is hard to find.’”

And so on. Towards the end of O’Connell’s playing career, the running “joke” was that he was visiting a local hospice each day after training to familiarise himself with the place. Brutal did not begin to cover it, which was one of the reasons why Munster were so relentlessly tough in adversity on the field.

And now? The “Brave and the Faithful” who followed their local heroes everywhere in the halcyon days are