We rarely have good things to say about the Pro12 – don’t get us wrong, we love the games, and think its underrated as a development tool (ask Mike Cheika if Leinster would have won the HEC in 2009 without winning the then-Magners the previous year), but it is a bit dowdy. Trips to an empty Murrayfield, the presence of the zebra-bunnies, the Irish interpros with 2.5^th teams and the lamentable organisation of the Welsh regions do not exactly compare well to the skill levels and intensity of the Top14 or the glitzy try-fest that is Ooooooooooooooh the Premiership. Plus its boring most of the time to be frank – its generally highly predictable.

It might seem a bit rich to be taking a pop at the Pro12 for not being competitive enough when the other two European pro leagues have had the same 10 teams in the playoffs for the past two seasons, but its true – the Pro12 has been pretty dull for much of its history. Leinster, Munster and the Ospreys have dominated, and the odd challenge by someone else is noticeable by its rarity.

Its easy for McCafferty and the like to point fingers at the lack of relegation, but its hard to see how that has benefitted, say, the Dragons or Connacht. Relegation, and the creative destruction it sometimes wreaks, can sometimes be a positive force – just ask the juvenated Saints.

But the cartel may be changing – its been a positive season on the depth front. For a start, Ulster might win it this year. Before the play-offs started, we would have picked Leinster, but after struggling past Glasgow, and post-Amlin, they look a little beaten up – Ulster’s stroll in the park past a lamentable Scarlets effort has set them up well, and the drive that  comes from honouring the tragic Nevin Spence could well be too much for Leinster. To be truthful, we’re split down the middle (naturally), but since Egg holds the pen right now, he’s going to pick Ulster by a nose.

Getting back to the Scarlets, we get that the regions are not in a good place right now, and that the structures of Welsh professional rugby are somewhat teetering, but none of that excuses the lack of effort from the Scarlets’ two Lions (one more than Ulster, don’t forget) in their semi-final – Johnny Davies looked panicked and passed poorly all day, and George North’s statuesque defending would have embarrassed Lesley Vainikolo.

That aside, the Scarlets were there for their season-long consistency, and most of them will be back next year (though not North unfortunately). Ulster won’t just be back, they’ll expect to win it. What then of Glasgae, the third cartel-buster in the playoffs?

Unlike this season, when Glasgow had a summer of flux, having to manage the loss of key players such as Richie Grey and Kelly Brown ,and a long-serving coach in Sean Lineen, they will be able to build on top of this season’s excellent effort. Last years recruits (Matawalu, Maitland and Strauss – an excellent summer of work) will have had this season under their belts, and they’ll be even better for it.

The most interesting challenge next season may well come from Treviso – the Italians have always had that ‘plucky underdog’ look about them, where they can win at home, albeit narrowly, but struggle away. This season, they started winning away, and handing out some hurt to teams as well (notably Munster and the Scarlets) – their wretched winter ruined their chances of finishing even further up the league than seventh,

So next season, as well as the old firm of Leinster, Munster and the Ospreys sniffing around the playoffs (Ospreys and, particularly, Munster will want to improve on this seasons showing – Munster, like Ulster last year, gave up after the HEC quarter-final), you’ll have Ulster, Glasgow, the Scarlets, Treviso, and possibly even Cardiff if they get their ass together. As well as seven competitive teams, you have teams from all four constituent countries will harbour playoff ambitions for the first time – and that’s a good thing, particularly as Sky begin the process of glamming it up.

As for Saturday, lets enjoy it – thankfully the Ulster-Leinster rivalry is still a friendly one, and its going to be a sunny, beery, relaxing day out! Plus we’re certain the home team will win.

Down the years, many a successful coach has driven on his team by creating a siege mentality within the camp.  No less a man than the great Sir Alex Ferguson, before becoming a darling of the media himself, used what he perceived to be a London bias in the English press to motivate his team.  No one likes us, we don’t care, he would say, and the team bought into his vision.

The Irish love a siege mentality and traditionally only ever reach a peak when they’re written off.  Remember beating Australia in Auckland?  Remember the 1991 World Cup?  Great performances from a team dismissed in advance.  At provincial level, the siege mentality has been a huge factor in how Irish rugby lines have been formed.  And it looks like it’s found a new home (incidentally, Connacht permanently have a siege mentality, so let’s leave them out for the moment).

Historically, the chip on the shoulder was always seen as a Munster thing.  It’s what drove them on to being the most successful team of the early professional era.  Munster rugby long held a view that Leinster and Ulster, with their wealthier private-schools-based catchment area and powerful boardroom presence, cocked a snoop at them and national teams reflected a selection bias against them.  Back in the days of selection commitees there was certainly  a sense that the school tie was as important as a player’s ability.  When the Heineken Cup launched and Irish rugby built itself around provincial franchises, Munster used the chip on its collective shoulder to brilliant effect.  They had always dominated the club game, and with Limerick and Cork now aligned in pursuit of a common goal they took the opportunity to show the Nordies and the D4-heads just how good they could be when given a proper chance.  The rest we know – they dominated Europe and national selection for the guts of a decade.

But a siege mentality can only last so long.  Munster became media darlings on a near mythic scale.  Anyone following our twitter feed will know that we don’t entirely buy into the extraordinary levels of mythology that get perpetrated at the very mention of a late Saturday afternoon kick-off in Thomond Park, but there are plenty who do.  Munster, the pride of Irish warriors, stitching the tears of Ginger McLoughlin into the team shirt, was born.  They became the embodiment of everyting great about Irish sport, a brilliant and heroic team.  When everyone loves you, it’s hard to claim that nobody likes you and you don’t care.

So the siege mentality was picked up by Leinster, who were seen as the team opposite to Munster in every way.  In a wonderful article, Matt Williams recently described a speech made in the dressing room by Denis Hickie after Leinster beat Clermont Auvergne in the Stade Marcel Michelin in 2003.  They had little travelling support, no more than a handful of family members who joined the players in the dressing room.  Hickie said that Leinster had no ‘Red Army’ equivalent following them and no support in the media but that none of that mattered.  Everyone important to Leinster Rugby was in that dressing room and that was enough; they had to do it for each other.  When we read it, it made us think about something we’d never considered before: that it’s great saying ‘we’re going to win for the fans who are the best in the world’, but having an army of passionate support is in fact a luxury that plenty of teams don’t have.  Some team simply have to win for themselves.

The culmination was in 2009, when Michael Cheika drove his team to new levels of feral hunger by exposing them to the full scale of the media hubbub, which was at that point in time in full Munster Lovin’ flow.  Niall Kiely’s infamous smugfest was apparently pinned to the wall in the Leinster dressing room that day.

Again, though, circumstances changed.  Joe Schmidt brought a new skills-based emphasis and didn’t require the media to motivate his team.  Besides, once up and running, his slick Leinster team themselves became the most celebrated rugby team in the land.  The image of an exclusive school boys’ club was long removed and Leinster the family-friendly creche-cum rugby-club was a hit with the public.  The siege mentality could be put down.

So it is that Ulster look to be the team in possession.  They have a real chippy look this season.  They look like a bunch of caged beasts (with an appropriate nod to the memory of Nevin Spence, which seems to be driving them on to lay down something great in tribute).  Leinster and Munster still seem to swallow up most of the rugby oxygen, with Ulster a bit of an afterthought.  They’ve had to take Gerry Thornley saying things like ‘Ulster might be the better team, but Munster are the better province’, whatever that means.  They’ve had Hugh Farrelly write that Ulster beating Munster in the quarter-final last year was bad for Irish rugby.  Their players seem to draw the short straw come national selection time, with Chris Henry, Paul Marshall, Dan Tuohy, Paddy Jackson and Tom Court all missing out on selection at various times – and all to Munster players.  They might be entitled to feel that none of the Irish media – dominated by Munster and to a lesser extent Leinster – really like them.  And they don’t care.

But where does this leave Munster? Stuck in the middle of the Pro12 and in the most precarious position of the Big Three in terms of Heineken Cup, while Leinster are reigning champs of Europe and Ulster are unbeaten this season, they are right now the third best team in Irish rugby.  Shouldn’t they be the ones trying to foster the spirit of indignation?

For sure, but how?  The memories of Munster’s greatness are still fresh and there’s no real desire to turn the crosshairs on a province which has given so much to Irish rugby in the recent past.  The respect they’ve earned down the years has long-term value.  Even tedious 15-9 wins over a dull Saracens team have the press swooning like its the Beatles and are described as ‘magical nights’, while ROG even at his most ordinary can be described as the ‘perfect 10 giving a tactical masterclass’.

While we are not proclaiming that the entire Irish media are biased towards Munster, we do have a theory on this. The sports media in Ireland is pretty uncritical in general – they reflect a public which proclaims extreme loyalty towards “their” team (whoever it may be) and wants to see that reflected in what they read. In addition, Ireland is a small and parochial country - the sports media are in regular contact with coaches and players and like to keep on good terms with them. Two stories stand out in this regard:

• Dwarf-gate in Queenstown – while Mike Tindall and various other England players were having photos surrepticiously taken by hacks writing Gotcha! stories, the Ireland team were in the exact same bar … with the Irish rugby press, all drinking together and having great gas
• Fangio once told a story about how he wrote “Peter Clohessy would be the only man in Limerick whose car could be left unlocked on the street and it would still be there when he got back” – he meant it as a compliment that, in a city with a gritty reputation, the Claw was held in huge esteem. By the standards of (again) the English gutter press, it’s pretty tame stuff - but Clohessy took exception, and went out of his way to point that out to Fanning

So that means lots of positivity – but what has this got to do specifically with Munster? The punditry class in Ireland is dominated by former players, and those from Munster appear to be more reluctant to dole out criticism of their province than those with ties to Leinster or Ulster.

Leinster, in their lengthy fallow period, had to endure the likes of Franno and Jim Glennon sniping from the sidelines, sometimes with some pretty nasty observations (remember the Leinster Ladyboys?).  Ulster have always had a culture of criticism, and tend more naturally to see the glass as half-empty.  Former Ulster players feel a responsibility to hold today’s team up against the standard of their interpro-dominating vintages from the past. But former Munster players appear lothe to criticise the players wearing the shirt.  There’s a culture of blood being thicker than water, for sticking up for the team, buying into the ethos – embedded from their playing days when they had to do exactly the same.

Perhaps it will change once Generation Ligind move into media roles – they knew what it took to achieve greatness, know what professionalism is all about and know the standard required to make Munster great again. In fact, Alan Quinlan looks extremely capable of hard-hitting analysis [aside: when, as a former Munster player, he tipped them to lose at home to Saracens, it was so noteworthy the boys on OTB speculated about "Quinny Slams Munster" headlines], and Jirry Flannery is on record as saying he didn’t really rate the next group of players coming through, and in a remarkable swipe, said he didn’t have much time for ex-players hanging-on to the coat-tails of the current squad.  He’s yet to establish a niche for himself in the media, but could be interesting, and his hair is really fascinating.  And surely, when ROG eventually retires after the 2021 Lions tour and moves into punditry he’ll offer a suitably withering assessment of the shortcomings of his replacement at fly-half.  Now that has to be worth waiting for.