In a valedictory interview on TG4 on the eve of last year's Guinness Pro 12 final, Paul O'Connell said that the closest thing he had to a regret about his career was not that he wasn't a few years younger and so might prolong the inevitable, but that he wasn't a few years older so that he could have played in the glory days of the All-Ireland League.
When O'Connell talks about his earliest rugby memories, one hears not about Ireland (though he said he did watch the Five Nations on TV), less about Munster (which didn't exist as a mass supported phenomenon until the early 2000s), but one hears instead about Young Munster, possibly the most heavily romanticised of all the old Limerick AIL clubs.
As he told Tom English in the fantastic 'No Borders: Playing Rugby for Ireland', his earliest memories of rugby are bound up with his Dad's passion for the game, particularly the local game.
We used to go into town for Mass above in the Dominicans and we'd come out after Mass and dad would be talking rugby to these guys and chatting about what happened in the All-Ireland League. There was one particular pal of his who would always have a bag of sweets in his pocket and he'd chat to Dad outside mass and we'd stand close by waiting for the sweets. You're not listening to what they're talking about but you're taking it in all the same.
He might have a couple of pints in Austin's or Charlie St George or above in the club and all the chat would be about Munsters - the Claw and Peter Meehan and Ray Ryan and these guys.
O'Connell was 13 when Young Munster beat St. Mary's in the final of the All-Ireland League in 1993 in front of 17,000 spectators in Lansdowne Road, possibly the high-water mark of the AIL.
The game was won by an intercept try from flanker Ger Earls (yes, he does have a son in the Irish squad) and the Limerick side would go on to win 17-14.
Incidentally, Brent Pope, then Mary's no.8, was sent off for flooring Munster's Francis Brosnihan in the first half.
Ger Earls was the openside flanker on the senior team and he was the guy for me because my Dad thought he was unbelievable. He was one of the main men on the 1993 team that won the All-Ireland League. They had an incredible pack of forwards, so hard and so tough. They just ground teams down. They were very aggressive, probably a little bit dirty as well but those were the stories I grew up with. It wasn't about skill or anything like that. It was all about physicality.
One can almost hear Richard Harris waxing lyrical about the nature of rugby in Limerick somewhere in the background.
