Munster always seek to be judged on results in the Champions Cup. That supersedes multiple excuses that can be made for them in January 2020.
Two of the best players in the world are landing in Limerick this summer. That should solve the short-term problems as Damian de Allende is expected to carry them where Virimi Vakatawa is taking Racing 92. Or where Alivereti Raka is driving Clermont Auvergne.
Across the gainline into the great beyond.
De Allende and RG Snyman can level the playing field against French clubs, but it will not fix deeper-rooted issues inside the organisation.
It is not all doom and gloom for Munster. Sure, there’s plenty of gloom after what happened in Paris last Sunday, but doomsday is a long way off for Johann van Graan and his new coaching ticket. The incoming Springboks will be available to play almost every week next season with the overriding aim of bringing 10 trophy-less seasons to an end.
The young South African coach is contracted until 2022 and while that is enough time to calmly go about addressing mounting problems in the camp, longer-term problems could reappear when de Allende and Synman move on.
Exiting Europe in the pool stages – even considering the opposition – must lead to a period of deep reflection. Reaching the quarter-finals, on the back of one typically brave performance, would have allowed them to paper over ever-widening gaps in the squad.
Only an unlikely string of results this weekend can save Munster. Otherwise, they will be out of Europe. I believe they can turn this crushing disappointment and loss of badly needed revenue into a positive. It also offers them time to assess how much teenage talent is coming through the ranks. Not the known quantities age 16 and 17, but players Munster will be contracting in eight to 10 years.
The immediate situation is nowhere near as concerning as what Leinster faced in the wake of the 2015 World Cup when they lost five straight pool games. During that period Leo Cullen made two decisions: firstly, he carefully began to expose the generation that captured a European title in 2018; and secondly, he recruited Stuart Lancaster to help him do this.
Bubbling
Cullen knew what was bubbling beneath the surface. We hear about Jack O’Sullivan, but the talent coming from Munster schools is not comparable to what St Michael’s College are producing on their own.
Also, can van Graan afford to dig that deep? It may not be in his remit, and anyway, does he really want to live in Limerick for five more years?
In Graham Rowntree he has a veteran of two Lions tours overseeing the forwards, and in Stephen Larkham one of the game's greatest-ever outhalves-turned-attack coach.
Next it becomes about mixing their young talent with the established internationals. The worry is a hierarchical selection policy exists in the squad. That can become a vicious circle as young players start feeling they are not good enough as they are not given the necessary exposure to get comfortable at the highest level.
Internally, I presume, attempts are being made to alter this, but external comparisons with Munster of old and modern Leinster are being constantly thrown in their face. It’s almost unfair to keep doing this; all the while Cullen speaks about informing players they will get opportunities in certain windows, when they can change his mind about selection for European games.
The O'Connell-O'Gara era cannot be replicated, nor should they want to replicate it
Max Deegan springs to mind.
The All Blacks do not have any untouchables. They proved as much by switching a two-time world player of the year from outhalf to fullback. Moving Beauden Barrett was an enormous risk, but their culture compelled him to embrace the decision. They have benched Sonny Bill Williams and Aaron Smith at key moments.
Leinster under Cullen adopt similar innovative methods.
Munster are miles off this mindset.
In Ireland we have become obsessed with players being "dropped" when they are not named in the starting team. It is not so black-and-white anymore, but it gets painted as such. The sporting epitaph of Conor Murray or Johnny Sexton will be penned if either man does not make the starting XV to face Scotland. In fact, such a tough call could prove the best decision for the two veterans, for Ross Byrne and John Cooney, and for Ireland.
Hard look
Munster need to take a hard look at themselves because while their culture remains the same, their identity is different now. It’s very hard to move forward with one foot in the past. The O’Connell-O’Gara era cannot be replicated, nor should they want to replicate it. Let supporters reminisce about Peter Stringer’s try against Biarritz or the miracle match against Gloucester.
The current group must be allowed to define themselves. The values of the two-time Heineken Cup champions were honed in the All-Ireland League (AIL). Under the current system, it is increasingly difficult to unearth another John Hayes or Alan Quinlan from non-traditional rugby patches.
Leinster shouldn’t be the only province springboarding Sean O’Brien and Tadhg Furlong from youth/club rugby out into the world.
Munster would benefit the most from long-term IRFU investment in coaching at all levels of the club game in Ireland. Remember the Munster brand, as it became known, was born out of Shannon RFC’s rivalries with Garryowen, Cork Con, Young Munster and taking the train to Dublin to beat the tar out of whoever was waiting on a winter Saturday afternoon.
Those days have passed into memory as the link that made them so valuable to the first iteration of Munster in the professional era is almost severed.
I’ll beat this drum until the club game becomes central to Irish rugby’s strategy of ending our place as also-rans on the global stage. With a little foresight the AIL and underage club structures can complement the provincial academies more than they currently do.
There are immediate reasons for Munster's season unravelling. Joey Carbery's injury is the obvious one
I come from the Leinster schools system: Clongowes Wood teenage talent going into Leinster and on to my adventures with Ireland and the Lions. I even got a children’s book out of it with Ross O’Carroll-Kelly as co-author. This production line is booming at present but it has reached capacity and cannot be expected to meet increasing demands of provincial squads.
The club system helped Irish rugby get to where it is today. It was instrumental in Munster’s rise to greatness during the first decade of the 21st century.
There are immediate reasons for Munster’s season unravelling. Joey Carbery’s injury is the obvious one but could he have conjured enough magic to save them on Sunday at La Défense Arena?
Possibly, we’ll never know.
Key figure
The IRFU decision to deny Alby Mathewson another contract extension damaged van Graan’s plans, but giving Craig Casey – a key figure in the Ireland under-20s Grand Slam last year – only two minutes against Racing 92 was hardly a ringing endorsement for a young player who will only gain confidence from being trusted in big matches.
Besides Carbery, resting the other 11 players returning from the World Cup over Christmas denied van Graan any continuity in selection. Glaring deficiencies in the squad were laid bare, most excruciatingly of all by Leinster in Thomond Park.
They are not in dire straits but the organisation has been shook.
Racing 92 never got out of second gear on Sunday. And Munster never had to deal with the Donnacha Ryan or Simon Zebo effect.
They kept coming around the corner into a monstrous defence no longer made from a mercenary core. Sacking Fijian lock Leone Nakarawa for returning late from Japan told us that.
Munster were never going to win the battle on those terms, yet they stayed in the fight until Teddy Thomas’s spectacular touchdown on 72 minutes.
We can presume that the coach does not trust his sub hooker or three (homegrown) backline replacements. They all arrived on 78 minutes, when the contest was decided. Arno Botha only relieved Jean Kleyn on 70 minutes. Even the reserve props – Jeremy Loughman and John Ryan – entered the game on 65 minutes.
Striking this balance is van Graan's most pressing challenge. Not the Champions Cup. Not winning the Pro 14
Now, it must be noted, neither prop made anywhere near the impact of Teddy Baubigny and Hassane Kolingar who appeared in the usual frontrow “finisher” slot of 50-odd minutes.
That’s clear evidence of a group lacking the depth to be Champions Cup contenders. Or a coach lacking belief in local players.
With the scoreboard nailbitingly close, van Graan trusted established frontliners to keep going even when Racing rolled their heavy artillery off the bench. The external message, as I see it, is van Graan only sees 19, 20 players capable of competing in big European games. This cannot be good for morale.
I don’t envy him. Maybe he feels that he cannot blood young guys when the Ireland players are available. Take 22-year-old Fineen Wycherley. By all accounts this six-foot-four lock/flanker is the real deal, but is he the next Jack O’Donoghue, in that we’ll have to wait three years before he fully matures because Snyman and Kleyn will play the majority of games next season?
Formula licked
Leinster have this formula licked. Jordan Larmour has been learning his trade in the backfield alongside Isa Nacewa and Rob Kearney, while I expect to see Ryan Baird locking down with Scott Fardy during the Six Nations.
That’s how you develop players. If Deegan (23) and Caelan Doris (21) surpass O’Donoghue or even Peter O’Mahony in the Irish backrow pecking order this year, they can thank Rhys Ruddock and Josh van der Flier for paving the road.
Striking this balance is van Graan’s most pressing challenge. Not the Champions Cup. Not even winning the Pro 14 – which could be a by-product of getting combinations right, as a few months of grace can now be afforded the Munster head coach.
Getting knocked out of Europe, and the instant humiliation that follows, can severely damage morale or, as Leo Cullen proved four years ago, it becomes the catalyst for moulding a new identity.
Munster, as a whole, are lacking confidence. Van Graan has been in a worse situation before with the Springboks, but he wasn’t around to witness the Rassie Erasmus remedy. He is still only 39 – and must be sick of reading his age – but he should lean on an experienced old head like Rowntree to sail the ship out of choppy waters. That’s why the former Leicester prop came aboard, right?
Van Graan is at a crossroads. Does he have enough time, the support of his employers and a generation of early-twentysomethings who can reshape Munster in the 2020s?
In the meantime, Leinster have disappeared beyond the horizon, Dan McFarland is operating off a five-year plan in Ulster and in Connacht Andy Friend is openly recruiting Leinster players who seek more game time.
Munster need a medium- to long-term strategy that must be understood internally so it can be seen externally.
