Trevor Brennan's Toulouse Diary - Issue 1

Our last involvement in this competition was that quarter-final defeat at home to Leinster which ended our chances of progressing to the semi-finals for the first time in the four years that I've been here.

After that we had to go and do a bit of soul searching, which we did, to reach the semi-finals of the French Championship against Stade Francais in Lyon football club. Underdogs, we came through a real battle by 12-9. Defence, defence, defence. The stats showed that I made 26 tackles, which was noted afterwards, and I probably only touched the ball once. That tells you the type of game it was.

To explain it in layman's terms, we did a Mayo on it. Our biggest performance of the year was in the semi-final, but then come the final we just didn't turn up. The wheels fell off the bus after we conceded a couple of quick tries at the start of the second half and we got the living bejaysus beaten out of us, 40-13, in front of 80,000 people in the Stade de France.

I bumped into the Biarritz president Marcel Martin in the corridor outside the dressing-rooms after the game and he said that their defeat in the Heineken Cup final to Munster had given them the desire to go on and win the championship. "Maybe if we'd won the Heineken Cup we'd have given you the French Championship."

I went to that Heineken Cup final in the Millennium Stadium with my Munster jersey, courtesy of Alan Quinlan from our semi-final three years before. Hats off to the ERC organisers. While I watched the opening ceremony I thought to myself how lucky those players were to be involved in such an occasion. I'd been there for the previous three seasons but I don't think you could compare the atmosphere in Cardiff last May to any other final in the tournament's history. The competition just gets bigger and bigger with each passing year.

I started the season feeling fresher than ever, after spending most of the summer hanging out in Ireland with Paula and the kids. I really switched off from rugby like I hadn't done in years, but early in the season I suffered a cracked vertebrae which I've had to play through.

Well, Sean Boylan, who is managing the Irish compromise rules squad this year, came over to Toulouse earlier in the season with his travel agent and sidekick Eugene Magee, a Wanderers' man known amongst the players as Louis Walsh.

They came over to see if there was the possibility of bringing the Irish compromise rules squad over here for a three-day training camp. To cut a long story short, I brought them around the club, we met with some people, shook a few hands, and it was a done deal.

Later that evening, Sean and Eugene wanted to see us train. We arrived down half an hour early and I asked Sean if he'd kindly have a look at my back. He's a fifth generation herbalist as well, of course, as being Meath coach for 20 years or so before resigning last year. So we made our way down to the dressing-rooms where our two physios, Christophe and Michel, were working on a couple of lads.

I introduced Sean as a friend from Ireland who was going to have a look at my back. Sean said he'd need a table and a chair, and went to work. He called Michel in to help, with me translating, telling him to hold me down as Sean twisted me, turned me and pulled me.

"Is he a physio?" Michel asked.

"No, not exactly."

"Is he a chiropractor?"

"No, I don't think he's that either."

"Is he an osteopath?"

How the hell do I explain this, I thought to myself. I said that Sean was a fifth generation herbalist, and that he'd worked on rugby players before such as Moss Keane and Neil Francis. They looked confused.

Then Fabien Pelous came in asked who's yer man?

I said he was the coach of the Irish compromise rules team, which was a mixture of gaelic football and Aussie Rules.

"What's that? asked Fabien.

"He's the coach as well?" asked Michel and Christophe. "And he's the doctor and the physio?" And they burst out laughing. Fabien didn't know what was going on.

But that's Sean, you just can't describe a man like that. He's unique.

For the next few weeks I felt incredible, brilliant. When I cracked the vertebrae in my back I was given two options, one of which was to go and get an operation. As this would have sidelined me for six months that wasn't an option, because this will probably be my last year playing rugby.

So I took the second option, which was to rest for a few weeks. Sean also gave me a few herbs as well to drink and told me of a story when he treated Moss Keane. He gave Moss a three week supply of herbal medicine but three days later Moss rang and asked: "Have you any more of that medicine Sean?" He'd drunk the three-week supply in three days. Another unique man.

The Irish squad came over last weekend for their three-day training camp at the club with a party of 60. It was a successful trip. They got some good sessions in during the day and at night were allowed use the firsts' pitch under floodlights. This year, 2007, is the Stade Toulouse centenary year and when officially welcoming the Irish squad our president Rene Bouscatel said it was the first time in the club's 100 years that they had received a gaelic team, and that it would be an honour for French rugby that the French team will be the first visiting team to play at Croke Park.

I had to leave the Irish lads on Friday as were away to Bayonne on Saturday and we didn't get back until late. Trailing 9-0 at half-time, we had to work hard for our victory and I was brought on about ten minutes into the secondhalf. I got a terrible whack on the front* of my head and had to have about 20 stitches.

Guy Noves had a team meeting with us yesterday as opposed to going through the video of the Bayonne game on Saturday. Guy said that a few things are going to have to change. And I think everyone in the squad would agree that we're missing something, a bit of fire or a bit of gas or whatever. We've had an up and down season. We haven't clicked, yet we're third in the French championship, which I suppose is a good thing in one way.

Our injury list is incredible: the two outhalves, Frederik Michalak and Jean-Frederic Dubois, Jean-Baptiste Elissalde, Clement Poitrenaud, Yannick Nyanga, Xavier Garbajosa. We've played 11 matches already and there were a couple of weeks when we were playing Saturday, Wednesday, Sunday, and once you get an injury or two you're in trouble. And there's a lot of doubt about whether these players will be fit for the Ulster game.

Guy said in the team meeting that playing against Ulster would be like playing against 22 Trevor Brennans. I was wheeled out for the press conference with the French media yesterday and told them that I loved playing in Ravenhill, that they're a great crowd, the atmosphere is brilliant and the players are good guys. They are also the best team in Ireland on form at the moment and we're very aware of that.

They then quoted Guy, who had apparently told them it would be like playing 22 Trevor Brennans. I said that I hoped not for their sake. Of course he would say something like that, but in truth there really is only one Trevor Brennan. Thank God.

Meeting the Irish lads again on Sunday, Sean asked me to take the warm-up, and we did a lot of bagwork etc. For me it was a privilege to be training with Irish players who have all reached the pinnacle of their own sport.

I'd like to wish the lads the best of luck but I don't want them to trust in luck. As Anthony De Mello, the famous monk, once said: "Trusting in luck is like walking into an expensive restaurant without a cent in your pocket, and eating dozens of oysters in the hope of finding a pearl to pay the bill."

The currency required to win these competitions is a combination of skill, determination, guts, belief in yourself as an individual and *in each other as a team. And from my own experience, make your own luck lads and you'll find that pearl.

(In an interview with Gerry Thornley. Trevor Brennan's Toulouse diary can also be read on the ERC website: www.ercrugby.com)