Instead, Munster went for the jugular, getting their reward when they went long in the line-out, kept possession and eventually worked Kelly over in the corner for the required fourth try. With a 25-point lead, it would all come down to O’Gara’s conversion.
“I think Rog has said he knew what he needed to do, but I remember having a conversation with him and he hadn’t a clue. None of us had any idea that the conversion at the end was important,” says the try-scorer.
“It was only [assistant coach] Brian Hickey who was on the sidelines, showing the forwards what we would have to do in terms of trying to get up the field for a drop goa in case Rog missed the conversion.
“Mick O’Driscoll was talking to me in the dressing room after the game and saying, he was looking at Brian Hickey going, ‘what is he on about?’
“It was actually a really good ploy because I think if we were fixated on four tries and 27 points or 28 then we would never have got it.”
An instant classic, the game has since become shrouded in myth, such as the Limerick taxi driver who apparently found Gloucester’s line-out calls in the back of his cab or the visiting blazers who sat down for the post-match function still believing their side had still advanced to the last eight too.
For what it’s worth, Kelly refutes the former but believes the latter. What is undoubted, however, is how the game was become a part of Munster folklore with Kelly a central character in the fabled story.
The province would go on to lose to Toulouse in the semi-finals and would have to wait until 2006 to finally get their hands on European rugby’s top prize. Perhaps, however, it is those 80 minutes that have come to best encapsulate the side’s defining qualities during a golden era.
“It was one of the better days,” says Kelly.
“Paul O’Connell used to say, that you know you’ve had one of those days whenever every joke in the dressing room is funny. It didn’t matter what anyone said that day, it was funny.
“It’s just one of those brilliant feelings. To be honest with you, people ask me what do you miss from rugby? And it’s those big days, particularly the big days when you had a result, and that dressing room afterwards.”
