Proud history collides with grim realities as Crusaders from the south face crusaders of the north

Depending on perspective, it is a contest brimming with either spectacular promise or spurious irrelevance.

For this is a fixture which startlingly unveils the reality of a still relatively young professional sport struggling to survive, financially and physically.

Munster are struggling on both counts; recently the list of names on their injury list numbered some 21; their purported indebtedness may not be as eye-wateringly steep as the albatross weighing down tonight’s stadium hosts, but it is significant nonetheless.

This is a glamorous occasion which Munster – not to mention the Páirc – desperately need to happen.

It seems quite apt that the row about naming rights caused such consternation, for it points precisely to the tightrope walk between honouring proud, historical tradition and bowing to modern commercial pressures.

With the demands of player welfare ever pressing, and pointing so many towards the emergency room or the chambers of justice, it is difficult to ascertain why an already congested calendar demands more matches.

Nobody is shouting stop; Munster have already played the Barbarians in Thomond Park and will travel to play Harlequins later this season.

Paddy Patterson, the Dublin scrum-half once of Blackrock, has been scratched for the rest of the season; he was man of the match when Munster last faced, and defeated, a touring side, a South Africa XV in 2022.

Simon Zebo, the Cork full-back once of Blackrock, was ruled out for an extended period and so the once keen hurler will miss out too.

Little wonder assistant coach Mike Prendergast was thanking the good graces when a recent training session ended without recourse to a stretcher, smelling salts or gurney. The fixture folly is compounded by the obvious fact that, crippling casualty list aside, so many stars are missing.

Crusaders have left a slew of their All Blacks at home – so no Scott Barrett, Ethan Blackadder, Joe Moody, Sevu Reece, Codie Taylor, David Havili or Will Jordan.

Aside from Munster’s wounded, a small affair in the south of France is rather more pressing than events in the south of Cork, denying them three first-choice half-backs, as well as a former and current Munster captain.

The game also clashes directly with the Six Nations encounter between Scotland and Wales, a truly vital competitive contest.

And yet as Premier League, hurling and championship racing jostle for attention, the dwindling romantics among us will cling to the Corinthian ideals underpinning this particular lark in the park.

Crusaders’ incoming coach Rob Penney’s return to Munster, too, also prompts a reminder that, long before the hosts belatedly ended their embarrassing trophy drought last summer, it was he who had been the first significant voice demanding that they advance their playing style.

This evening presents just the latest thread in Munster’s rich, historical tapestry, one that dates back to another collection of Antipodean visitors 121 years ago.

In 1905, Dave Gallaher, from New Zealand via Donegal, captained the ‘Originals’ who embarked on the most seminal tour of them all, a 35-game, six-month odyssey to Europe and North America.

And one of them took place in Munster, at the Markets Field; 40 years later, Australia came to the Mardyke, like the Páirc, also hard by the Lee, before South Africa visited Musgrave Park.

Famously, they would beat Australia and New Zealand – who dares to forget ’78? – and completed the ‘triple crown’ here against a South African side in 2022.

And so the enduring historical grandeur of amateur days, rather than the grim currency of this professional era, will fill the hearts of all those who flock to add to their footsteps to a glorious rugby ritual.