When two tribes go to play...

Heineken Cup final: Dream date as Richards' Leicester meet their mirror image in Kidney's Munster

A couple of days ago in Cardiff, Dean Richards lost the toss of a coin. As the lugubrious Leicester coach takes any defeat as a personal insult (although yesterday's setback for an under-strength Tigers line-up in the Zurich Championship will not keep him awake at nights), calling heads instead of tails did not make his day. It was not for choice of ends or kick off but changing rooms, and Leicester have been consigned to the south.

It no longer carries the losing hoodoo – Stoke and Birmingham City ended the jinx – but it means that for the Heineken Cup final at the Millennium Stadium on Saturday, Munster will have the dressing room with a star on the door. "The north is luxurious, the south barren, like a prison cell," bemoaned a Leicester spokesman.

After the semi-final victory over Llanelli in Nottingham, the temptation is to consider that the Tigers' name is on the Cup. It was first etched in 12 months ago when Leicester overcame Stade Français 34-30 in Paris, the crowning glory of an unprecedented campaign in which they also won the Zurich Premiership and Championship.

With the Premiership long secured for the fourth successive season, Richards and his admirable squad now have the opportunity of doing what no club in Europe has done – mounting a successful defence of the Cup. In 1997, the first year that English clubs competed, Leicester got to the final at Cardiff Arms Park but were obliterated 28-9 by a brilliant Brive team.

Leicester went into a huddle, took the lesson on board and in the intervening years have become the most consistently successful club in or out of Europe. Perhaps only Munster – the two teams have met only once, in a friendly at Welford Road two seasons ago which the Tigers narrowly won – can match Leicester for attitude, support and a collective will to win.

In many respects, not least at the box office, this is the dream final. Each club received 20,500 tickets, which were immediately swallowed up, and the rest will be sold, taking the crowd in Cardiff to a capacity 74,000, breaking the record of 68,500 for the 2000 final at Twickenham.

On that occasion, North-ampton beat Munster 9-8, Ronan O'Gara having a day to forget as the Irish province failed to exploit a strong wind. O'Gara, the leading scorer in the Heineken this season with 120 points, will again be a key figure as, of course, will Tim Stimpson. Llanelli, whatever they have achieved this season, will forever curse Stimpson's extraordinary injury-time penalty that sealed Leicester's 13-12 victory in Nottingham.

The Llanelli forwards, not for the first time this season, got the better of their opponents but forgot the cardinal rule. To beat Leicester you don't just need a cross, garlic, a brilliant sunrise and the marksmanship of Stephen Jones, the stake has to be rammed through the heart.

Whether Munster, who had a decidedly more comfortable semi-final victory over Castres in a one-dimensional match in Béziers, have the firepower up front to unsettle Leicester is debatable. Both packs, one led by Martin Johnson, the other by the even longer serving Mick Galwey, are showing signs of wear and tear at the end of a long, hard road.

The medical bulletin from the Munster camp is that the No 8 Anthony Foley and the wing Anthony Horgan have shoulder injuries, the second row Paul O'Connell has ankle ligament damage and the flanker Jim Williams is having treatment to a calf. Williams, signed last autumn from ACT Brumbies, did not appear against Castres but played a big role in the 16-14 quarter-final win over Stade Français on French soil. While Williams, Foley and David Wallace form an impressive back row, O'Connell has been one of the revelations of the season. To lose one or more could upset Munster's balance.

For Leicester, Johnson and Neil Back are nursing colds, the wing Steve Booth is recovering from a popped rib cartilage and the veteran Darren Garforth has a calf muscle injury. Garforth will be 37 next season and Leicester are looking for a tight-head replacement. Having already received the knock-back from Phil Vickery, Castres' Argentinian Mauricio Reggiardo is on the Leicester list. Adam Balding's 14-day ban for fighting expires two days before the meeting with Munster.

The final will be the swansong not only for Galwey and Peter Clohessy but for the Munster coach Declan Kidney, who leaves his beloved province to assist the Ireland coach Eddie O'Sullivan. As if the motivation factor isn't already off the blackboard.

To lose one European final to a Midlands club is bad enough; to lose two would haunt Kidney and his squad for the rest of their days although, typically, the softly spoken coach downplays his role and his influence. The fact is, he has had a big impact on the Munster experience.

To pick a winner you could do worse than toss a coin. What Leicester and Munster have in common is a tremendous team spirit, a wonderfully developed instinct for survival which is personified by a huge defence and sets of supporters that travel en masse more in expectation than hope. "How can we possibly let them down," Kidney is fond of telling his team.

Munster's exploits have attracted so many recruits that union now rivals Gaelic games in rural southern Ireland. "There is no doubt that we have something very special but I'm not so sure we know exactly what it is," Mike Mullins, the centre, said.

Leicester have the same special qualities. Perhaps the crucial difference is that the Tigers possess more game-breakers and know how to win a European final. Munster have enjoyed almost everything in the Heineken Cup except the final beer. Leicester, asked to choose two songs for a European Rugby Cup dinner in Cardiff next weekend, opted for 'Angel' by Robbie Williams and the Beatles' 'Let it Be'. "We didn't want 'Jerusalem' or 'Swing Low, Sweet Chariot'," said the spokesman. "We wanted two nice ballads." One's gut feeling is that Leicester will not let the Cup be.