This Saturday in Paris is set to be a highly charged, emotional occasion.
The meeting of Munster and Racing 92 will pit the current PRO12 leaders against last season’s Top 14 winners in a Champions Cup pool game that has varying degrees of importance for both sides.
Racing are already out of the competition’s knock-out stages but need wins to get their season back on the rails. They will not back down on Saturday and the presence of Ronan O’Gara on their coaching staff merely adds to the drama.
This moved the great man to tearshttps://t.co/oxjqJrWI1K
— SportsJOE (@SportsJOEdotie) January 4, 2017
Munster, on the other hand, can tee themselves up for the quarter finals by toppling Racing twice in three weeks.
There is also the Anthony Foley factor.
The Munster legend was preparing his side to face Racing 92, on October 16, and was feeling confident. His team were in a good place. Foley passed away on the morning of the game and plunged the squad, province and rugby fans across the world into a state of despair.
The way Munster have bounced back since Foley’s passing, and the tributes of rugby supporters to ‘Axel’, is uplifting. His spirit and style of play – his belief in ‘the Munster way’ – lives on.
It has also been heartening to see how the rugby community has reached out to Munster. French sides Clermont and Toulouse paid tribute at Champions Cup games, Ulster and Exeter fans sang ‘Fields of Athenry’, Leinster’s players wore red ‘8’ jerseys before games and Irish players formed in the figure 8 at Soldier Field.
Ahead of this weekend’s game, Racing 92 supporters got in touch with Munster fan groups, and the province itself, to let them know they would put travelling fans up in homes for the game. It was a remarkable gesture.
The same Racing supporters have now gone a step further. They have contacted the Munster Rugby Supporters Club to let them know they are welcome to join them for a planned guard of honour for the Munster team when they arrive at Stade Yves du Manoir, on Saturday afternoon.
Many Munster fans have already committed to the gesture and will congregate with their French peers to flank the Munster, then Racing team buses as they arrive for battle.
It is set to be some game and this is a fitting start to proceedings.
