The only genuinely contented man in the BBC studio at Lansdowne Road on Saturday was David Wallace. The Munster player may have been frustrated not to have been out on the pitch for the Celtic League final between his province and rivals Leinster but he was nonetheless fairly thrilled by the occasion. There were two other men in the studio and one of them was definitely not happy.

Presenter Steve Ryder never deviates from his governing aura of suave calm, presenting sports with that perfectly English combination of expensive tweed and innate nostalgia, his tone inflected with faint elegy as if he knows that nothing, not even the first ever Celtic League final, is as good as it used to be.

Place two over-50s pub teams in front of Ryder for an afternoon and he would bring a certain tint of majesty and vain nobility to their endeavours, before heading off through the early evening mist in his Daimler, maybe stopping off at 'The Shropshire Lad' for a swift ale but home, as always, in time for dinner and poetry hour on Radio 3.

Ryder is simply at his Majesty's service, never happy or otherwise, just constant. So the grouch was, of course, a Welshman. Jonathan Davies seems to have been around for about 60 years now, a small but substantial force with a voice that whistles all the woes in every Welsh valley down through the passages of his famously sculpted and indented hooter.

We are invited to remember him as the diminutive wizard around the scrums, the nippy and inventive soul of a Welsh team that won a little bit more than it lost - albeit mainly through the place-kicking brilliance of Paul Thorburn.

Davies was one of the pioneers who 'crossed over' to play rugby league for a time and even though his gifts were also eulogised in that period, he appears to have approached the threshold of mid-life with something of a monkey on his back. Jonathan, perched on his comfy BBC sofa, always seems peeved about something without ever explaining quite what.

His mood was just so on Saturday but this time the cause was not quite so obscure. The give away was even on the match programme: Munster v Leinster. There was no Welsh team playing.

The presence of a pair of Paddy sides in the final of a competition involving the cream of Welsh and indeed Scottish flair must have been a nasty little thorn in the sides of quite a number of our Celtic cousins. In the post-Campbell era of the 1980s when Irish rugby "lost its way", a fondness developed for characterising the green game as nothing more than a merry little side show, a faction fight with Guinness and whooping and heavy defeats.

The first 20 minutes became the shallow signature salute to the Irish planning, the theory being that the Irish would charge about the field like lunatics for the first 20 minutes before collapsing in a wheezing, flush faced mob, calling out for pints and fags.

Then the Gerrys and the Gavins of the international game could get on with the business of thrilling the masses with ice-cool and sophisticated modern rugby. Afterwards, lip service would be paid to the Irish passion and fire and how, win or lose, they loved a good party.

And while there was, once upon a time, probably an element of truth to it all, those days are long gone. Yet despite the presence of world-class players on the pitch, old Jonathan wore a slightly pained expression on Saturday, as if he really didn't fancy an afternoon of watching two sets of heathens battering the lives out of each other for at least 20 minutes.

He must have been a bit surprised, therefore, when Munster captain Mick Galwey jumped, Evil Knievel- style, through the absurd paper hoop placed in front of the players' tunnel brandishing not a shillelagh but an oval ball. And that both teams seemed intent on using it.

If anything, Jonathan seemed more discouraged as the afternoon went on, possibly because he realised it would be a while before he would see one of his own sides at this stage.

Apart from Eric Miller's ill-advised toe-poke into the midriff of Anthony Foley, there was little to no evidence of the wild Irish, just a pair of professional sides playing the game.

Afterwards, victorious Leinster coach Matt Williams hinted that the final had shifted the axis of the domestic game.

"There was a reputation that Leinster doesn't have any spirit, that Munster had cornered the market. I'm very pleased to say that's dead and there are two great sides in town now."

Indeed, as the Leinster side went through the celebrations, something struck about Munster. For all the great days and big wins, something is missing. Silverware. The fiery southern side is developing a fatal habit of falling short on the biggest stage.

Popular as Leinster is, there might be one reason that most Irish people would hope that Munster recover to become Ireland's premier team.

After the cup was presented to Leinster captain and the team crowded around the VIP box for a bit of whooping it up, the most eerie sound imaginable arose from the somewhere deep and cavernous in Lansdowe Road.

Even Steve Ryder, preparing to move on to soccer, blanched as the genuinely haunting Banshee's wail reached his ears.

"Eh, I think that could be the sweet melodies of Trevor Brennan," explained David Wallace.

If it was indeed the Naas man, he could not be seen and sounded as if he was singing not from the Lansdowne stand but somewhere below, like Hades.

It was the way Ronnie Drew might sound if he were singing under water. It was an unforgettable sound, bordering on frightening.

Come to think of it, maybe that's why Jonathan Davies looked so unhappy. Maybe he has heard the Brennan Ballad before. Maybe he was just plain scared.