These days, sport isn't just about what happens on the field of play, but what goes on in the background. Clubs get taken over, and millionaire owners get to pursue their vanity projects by buying in the best players in the hope that they can put together an invincible side.

It's been going on for years in football, and in the last few years in rugby too. The recent World Cup saw several wealthy club owners compile their shopping lists, and many of the stars of Southern Hemisphere now ply their club trade in Europe.

You can buy skill, and talent and flair, but what you can't buy is what is under the shirts of the Munster team.

Pride. Passion. Doggedness. Belief. Faith. Courage…

…and the rest.

Back in June, when the draw for the Heineken Cup was made, I predicted that Munster would make it out of the Pool of Death. And so they did. They knew what they had to do. Win their home games, win at least one away game, pick up bonus points if they lost, and crucially, prevent their opponents picking up losing bonus points at Thomond. And that's what they did.

This season's knockout phase is interesting not for who's there, but for who's not. No Wasps, Leicester, Stade, or Biarritz. The only two teams left with any proven Heineken Cup pedigree are Munster and Toulouse. They could end up meeting in the quarters. I hope not, as that would rob the tournament of its ideal final.

(Before anyone points out Doug Howlett's presence in the Munster set up as evidence of Munster's succumbing to the lure of recruiting Tri Nations stars - by all accounts Howlett himself wanted to move to Munster.)