THROUGH THEIR EYES: Munster 33 Northampton Saints 19

Back then, Jim Mallinder’s men marched to Thomond Park for a Heineken Cup quarter-final.

Saints were a side on the up, having improved rapidly every season since earning promotion back to the Premiership at the first time of asking in 2008.

But the Munster mission would prove a bridge too far.

Saints had actually led at half-time, with Stephen Myler landing two penalties and adding the conversion to a Jon Clarke try.

But Munster came roaring back after the break as tries from Jean de Villiers and Doug Howlett, who scored two on the day, helped the hosts to victory.

Ronan O’Gara was a typically impressive presence for the Irish province as he stuck the boot into Saints.

And this week, we caught up with a couple of men who played for Saints in that match to get their reflections.

First up was current black, green and gold boss Phil Dowson, who wore the six shirt in that quarter-final showdown at Thomond Park.

“I remember thinking at half-time 'we're in with a shout', but then we turned around and Ronan O'Gara, with the wind behind us, absolutely peppered us,” Dowson said.

“I remember it being a fierce encounter and I remember at half-time thinking 'oh, we're not too far away here' and then Ronan O'Gara put us back in our box.

“Clearly it was (a step too far for that Saints team) because we lost to Munster in the quarters, but we went pretty hard on the night out - I remember that!

“We had a few games out in Munster, one where Ronan O'Gara hit the drop goal and there was another one in a pool game where we just couldn't get one over on them.”

Centre Clarke was the man who had scored to give Saints an advantage that they couldn’t hold on to after the interval.

On his try, Clarke said: “I remember we just changed direction, got some numbers in the line and I was the lucky one at the end to just run it in.

"I do remember doing probably the worst dive I’ve ever done. It was like a forward dive to try to get close to the posts, but I remember thinking I must have looked like a right lunatic.

"It made no sense because I could have just dived with the ball at my chest, but I sort of dived with it out in front.

"The try I scored was the one to take us into the lead at half-time and though they’d been attacking the door and making the breaks, we scored an easy try.

"I remember thinking ‘we’ve got this’ as we headed in at half-time but you realise they had some exceptional players like Jean de Villiers at 12 and he was an exceptional player.

"They ended up scoring more than 30 points but they had that class with Ronan O’Gara, Jean de Villiers and Dougie Howlett scored twice.

"As soon as we made a few mistakes, we’d dug a hole for ourselves and playing there in Limerick, it makes it even tougher.

"We lost to Leinster (in the final) the year after and maybe our second-half performances had an effect in terms of us winning silverware.”

Saints were very much a team on the up when they travelled to Munster.

And Clarke said: “We’d been going through some good home runs and it was all building in.

"To get to the quarter-finals, you have to beat good teams.

"Every time, you feel like you can always win and you just need the rub of the green.

"We definitely felt like we could win anywhere but Munster had been a team who had been there and been consistently strong.

"I remember one of the times Ignacio Lobbe put a hole through the wall when he was psyching himself up for a game at Munster but I don’t remember what was said after we lost that quarter-final.

"All we could do was target the cup for next year and also look at the league because we were always competing for that.

"You can’t be too negative, you’ve got to get yourself back in and get going.

"Some of the fixtures as you get to the latter stages of Europe are almost like internationals because everything’s in your face and there’s always that feeling of pressure because it’s all on the line.

"It was an amazing experience to be part of that game at Munster and to go around all those different places with your mates, put everything into it and then carry on trying to go for the next thing the week after.”