Twelve Feet Tall

“Memories?” Moss Keane asks, “I remember we won."

The Lansdowne lock reflected on Munster’s unprecedented, historic, inconceivable, and (insert any other positive expletive you can possibly imagine) victory over the touring New Zealand side on 31st October 1978.

Previously unbeaten for the entire calendar year, the All Blacks fell to a Munster side led by captain Daniel Canniffe and coach Tommy Kiernan. Kiernan, former Ireland and British and Irish Lions captain, made the team watch three videos of All Black’s games from the tour. He planned to minute detail, carrying out video analysis in a time when it was almost unheard of for a club side. From this video analysis session, Kiernan identified a common move employed to get winger Stu Wilson on the ball and implemented a countermeasure. Sure enough, early in the game Seamus Dennison recognised the move and met Wilson head-on, delivering a crunching tackle, a hushed silence fell over the crowd. Moss Finn hauled the unmoving Dennison to his feet and exclaimed, “yer man is worse than you are". Larry Moloney recalls “that got the crowd's dander up and showed they were only human".

Only one try was scored that day. After a lovely chip and chase initiated by Tony Ward, Jim Bowen caught the ball, evaded two men, drew a third, and popped it to Christy Cantillon who galloped to the try line. This was far from “Wardy’s” only influence on the game. He converted the try as well as two drop goals, one in each half to put the World Champions away. In his own words, "I was okay". He was more than okay, Ward claimed the honour of European Player of the Year that year. A confidence player through and through, Ward must have fed off the atmosphere immensely. It was said that the crowd started chanting and clapping five minutes into the second half and never relented.

Many things were said prior to the game about that New Zealand team and their year-long unbeaten streak. In the team talk before the game, Gerry McLoughlin remembers, "Kiernan told us an All Black will never try and go around you. So it was a case of tackle, tackle, tackle, especially for the first 10 or 15 minutes of the second half". With Dennison and Pat Whelan leading the charge the Munster line was unrelenting all night and when the final whistle blew the score line read, Munster – 12, New Zealand – 0, and every one of them stood twelve feet tall.

Original paper from the famous victory

	​Munster	New Zealand
1.	​G. McLoughlin	J. Johnston
​2.	P. Whelan	J. Black
3.	L. White	G. Knight
​4.	M. Keane	A. Hayden
5.	B. Foley	F. Oliver
6.	C. Cantillon	G. Maurie (c)
7.	C. Tucker	A. McGregor
8.	D. Spring	W. Graham
9.	D. Cannife (c)	M. Donaldson
10.	T. Ward	E. Dunn
11.	​J. Bowen	S. Wilson
12.	G. Barrett	L. Jaffray
13.	S. Dennison	B. Robertson
14.	M. Finn	B. Williams
15.	L. Moloney	B. McKechnie