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The signing of Stephen Larkham as senior coach has been broadly welcomed and while a lot of fans are hoping this is part of the jigsaw to finally bring Munster Rugby back to the top table, you only have to scratch the surface of social media to see the knives being sharpened should Munster fail.
Unfortunately this is not something new and the fact that there is no indigenous coach on the ticket seems to make this a much easier position for people to take as opposed to being critical of a homegrown ‘legend’.
Change, historically, is not something that has sat easily in Munster Rugby circles — Jim Williams calling out the top brass for impacting team preparation and player welfare by continuing with a dual training base; Rob Penney’s upskilling of players and style changes; and the push back from the discussion of Thomond Park naming rights while Munster Rugby struggled to pay the stadium loan and had regular annual cashflow deficits. These have all provoked negative reactions from fans, media, and former players alike.
With most of the latest changes now in place, what Munster require is stability, specifically with the coaching ticket. Four head coaches in the last seven seasons tells its own story. It’s hard to have consistency in playing style, player progression, and succession planning with that many changes at the top and that is why the likes of Van Graan (pictured), Ferreira, Rowntree, and Larkham need to stick around long term.
Munster and the Professional Game Board of the IRFU have done a remarkable job in securing such an experienced and talented coaching team but it will be of little use if there are further significant changes in the next season or two.
Munster have a consistency that is virtually unrivalled, their ability to make the knockout stages of competitions year after year would be seen by most clubs as a fantastic achievement. But due to their own historical success and the more recent success of neighbours Leinster, merely getting to the knockouts is not acceptable.
A lot of fans use silverware as the metric when comparing to Leinster but seem to forget that it was only a few seasons ago Leinster lost five of their six European pool games — and yet Leo Cullen remained as head coach.
Would a similar set of results be acceptable for any Munster coach?
Munster fans need to give this coaching ticket time, accept that success is not an annual right, and let the coaches develop the players and attacking style. The coaches, in return, need to commit long term to Munster and tap into the likes of Niall O’Donovan as team manager if and when information on ‘the Munster way’ is needed.
I don’t believe Munster are a million miles away from getting back to the top. The playing squad has a good age profile with most players in or entering their prime. The quality of players coming through underage into the academy is there for all to see, so what is now needed from the coaching ticket is to integrate those coming through into the first team and enhance the attacking play to supplement one of the best defences in Europe.
The final bits of the puzzle will be the replacement CEO and the additional coach, likely to have a remit as a skills coach. The new CEO is vital as Van Graan has taken over some of the tasks, such as player contracts, that has traditionally sat with Garrett Fitzgerald.
Van Graan needs to be fully resourced and supported both on and off the pitch and what Munster need most of all is patience from the fans and media as they try to bed this new coaching ticket in.
(Published in the Irish Examiner on June 17th 2019)