With advertising hoarding for watering hole Murty Rabbits and The Connacht Hotel chasing around the perimeter of the pitch, you could have mistaken the boneyard atmosphere in a ghostly Aviva Stadium for obsequies from the west of Ireland for a dramatically changed game.
But wakes by their nature invariably throw up conviction and passion. Even in the clutch of hazardous Covid-19 and its intimidating fixed stare over everything, there was plenty to nurture the rugby soul as Connacht showed they were far from a team of "misfits."
Munster, they will regret their defeat to Leinster on Saturday. But more sharply and in the longer term the loss of Springbok RG Snyman, who may have suffered a difficult cruciate ligament injury to his knee, will haunt Munster coach Johann van Graan and the cursed South African player for some time to come.
“I’m gutted myself with possibly losing him now,” said van Graan. “He himself is pretty disappointed. He worked so hard to get into the position to actually play, was so excited to play.
“He stole that lineout. It went from absolute athleticism in the air into despair literally half a second later. Hopefully it’s not bad, but yeah I’m pretty gutted about that.”
That was the unmistakable take away in a bad news day for Munster. Van Graan now limps forwards to Connacht later this week without Snyman, Kilcoyne, the recovering Tadhg Beirne and replacement Jean Kleyn (neck), who also had to be withdrawn before the finish of the Leinster match.
The secondrow problems came on top of James Cronin’s late withdrawal. Kilcoyne stepped in as a starter before his ankle gave way in the opening 10 minutes.
With the grunts and dunts and voices rising up the Aviva stands, the throwback on Sunday was of Lansdowne back in the day when the AIL was something and anointed club members would play their league games on the front pitch.
The barking of the players and muffled sounds of the scrum boys pushing bodies around the turf was a kind of thumping base to the background of the game. You could even hear the suck of the players boots on the grass, when they silently ran to the centre of the pitch at the start of the game before the bodrhan and fiddle kicked in and a ‘Black Lives Matter’ salute. Some even took a knee.
Maybe it was that Connacht just rose to the occasion of unusual circumstances better that the Ulster boys did for their 26-20 win. Not only did their energy have more punch but they bathed in discipline and clear thinking, especially when falling down to 14 men in the second half.
"Our energy was great. That was a crucial period. They dug really deep, some really strong characters," said Connacht coach Andy Friend about going down a player. "We had five debutantes and Bundee on his 100th cap. I thought Bundee was really special,"
Friend was a polar opposite after the match to Ulster’s Dan McFarland, who cut not just a disappointed figure but a coach surprised and confused why Ulster flickered and didn’t fire as they had been during training in Belfast all last week.
“I’m searching for the reason we didn’t have the spark I was expecting,” said McFarland. “It was disappointing to put in that kind of performance. I don’t want to take away from Connacht but we were a shadow of ourselves. You try to remind yourself of levels.”
That was how the weekend broke. Some coaches kicking themselves, other coaches kicking on and the great old entanglement with the game again back on.
