Latest Blog - Will prepares for Cardiff

For eight months, stadiums across Europe have been full with fanatical crowds urging their teams on for that one shot at glory, imploring players to go those extra inches that mean the difference between victory and defeat, calling for one final heave at a scrum, or one final try saving tackle or strength draining steal at the lineout. I've travelled grounds round the continent and watched as dreams have endured and died and finally, it boils down to 80 odd minutes in front of a capacity sell out at one of the finest stadiums in the world. All for a chance to go home with the finest trophy in the club game, the Heineken Cup.

80,000 or so fans of Munster and Toulouse, and no doubt a few enthusiastic neutrals, will cram into the Millennium Stadium to witness quite possibly one of the biggest games in club history - two European heavyweights clashing on the grandest of stages. Thousands more who haven't been lucky enough to claim a ticket for the match will settle down in front of the television to watch a game that brings the blood to boil.

You could say the two teams who have made it to the final furlong deserve to be here. Statistically, Toulouse are the most successful club in the Heineken Cup and Munster have always been there or thereabouts when it comes to the latter stages of the competition. In fact, with four Heineken Cups between them encompassing seven finals, it's perhaps a surprise that they've never met on the final stage before.

The rampaging Munstermen and continental Frenchmen have also played the most Heineken Cup matches and progressed to the knock out stages more than any other clubs in the history of the competition, a staggering and identical success rate of 10 occasions over the past 13 years of the tournament. The mouth salivates at the prospect of what could lie in store come kick off on Saturday afternoon.

There is no finer stadium anywhere in the world than the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff. I was lucky enough to play there a few times for England, and the noise when you run out just knocks you sideways. The two sets of fans this weekend will bring noise, colour, passion and a burning desire for victory - of that there is no doubt. The massed ranks of Irishmen in particular are sure to head across the Irish Sea to flood Cardiff, much as they did for the final in 2006.

Returning to the scene of their only ever victory in this competition two years ago will give both fans and players from the Irish contingent a huge amount of comfort. The list of those in the squad involved last time around - key men such as David Wallace, Denis Leamy, Paul O'Connell, Alan Quinlan, Ronan O'Gara and man of the match in 2006, Peter Stringer included - reaches well into double figures and all know what it takes to prevail at this stage.

These wise old heads will be crucial but so too the rapier like blade that has since been added, with the inclusion of South Sea Islanders such as Rua Tipoki, Lifeimi Mafi and Doug Howlett, who have lit up game after game in this year's competition with their direct and aggressive running.

Toulouse fans will be praying that the team's heartbeat, the mercurial magician, Jean Baptiste Elissalde, will be fit to play. His combination both on the inside with Byron Kelleher and outside with Cedric Heymans in particular will be crucial, and he needs to get the backline of Jauzion and the returning Fritz running at Munster.

At the breakdown, Yannick Nyanga will be required to get involved and disrupt as well as rampaging free and displaying his undoubted running talents in the loose. The old warhorse, Fabien Pelous, will need to dominate in the scrum and lineout if Guy Noves' side are to stop the Irishmen's battle hardened forwards building up an unstoppable head of steam and possible match winning momentum.

It promises to be an absolute fire cracker of an occasion - the ultimate mix of style and culture pitting the epitome of French flair with the immoveable object that is Declan Kidney's Munster. Nine of the previous finals have been settled by less than a try and I expect this to be even closer. If I had to come down off the tallest of fences, I would say Munster by a whisker, if only because I will have to face the thousands of marauding invaders from South Ireland in Cardiff on Saturday.