THE CHIEFS HAVE a bye in Super Rugby, so incoming Munster head coach Clayton McMillan is taking the chance to visit Limerick this week.
As first reported by the Irish Examiner, the New Zealander is meeting some of the staff and players he’ll be working with full-time from this summer, when he moves to Munster on a three-year contract.
McMillan is determined to go out on a high with the Chiefs by leading them to their first Super Rugby title in his tenure. Defeats in the last two finals haven’t sat well. They’ve made a good start in that quest, currently leading the table after five wins in six games.
As ever, the Chiefs have been playing thrilling rugby even if McMillan branded their second-half struggles against Moana Pasifika last weekend as “borderline embarrassing.” They had been sublime in the first half before dropping off. McMillan is a tough task master with high standards.
But clearly, the Munster project is already chief among McMillan’s thoughts. It would be intriguing to hear his unfiltered thoughts on how the southern province is shaping up for the new chapter under him.
He will surely be pleased about the new signings Munster have confirmed, with 26-year-old loosehead prop Michael Milne and 24-year-old hooker Lee Barron to join from Leinster this summer.
Munster have been intent on investing in their front row for years – several possible non-Irish-qualified [NIQ] signings were rebuffed by the IRFU – and while they’d love to have landed proven world-class performers, Milne and Barron are strong additions. Throw in the fact that tighthead Oli Jager only joined in November 2023 and Munster could have a very new-looking front row next season.
Milne and Barron will have to earn their places, of course, but they’re dynamic players with lots of upside. Milne has trained with the Ireland squad and is an explosive carrier when fit and firing, while Barron is a tall, powerful hooker with a similar frame to Dan Sheehan. New competition will be good for existing senior front rows like Jeremy Loughman and Diarmuid Barron.
23-year-old Irish-qualified centre Dan Kelly is another player McMillan will be watching, given that he will join from Leicester this summer. A standout for the Ireland U20s back in 2020, Kelly subsequently won a senior England cap but had fallen out of that picture.
He hasn’t always grabbed headlines for Leicester in recent seasons but Kelly is a tidy centre and a fine athlete who Munster believe has the best ahead of him.
JJ Hanrahan is the fourth confirmed addition for Munster and will bring lots of experience back for his third stint with his native province. With Billy Burns set to leave after a single season, Hanrahan’s nous will be welcome.
Of course, McMillan will be hoping that he can build his team around current first-choice out-half Jack Crowley, who has attracted an offer from Leicester. The Ireland international must consider his options but Munster and the IRFU have seemed quietly confident they can convince Crowley to stay at home.
Meeting McMillan in person and hearing about his plans for the next few years in Munster would surely be another nudge for Crowley if it’s required.
And Munster supporters will be hoping McMillan might have another signing up his sleeve given his connections in New Zealand. The southern province already have three NIQ players in their squad in Alex Nankivell, Jean Kleyn, and Thaakir Abrahams, but IRFU performance director David Humphreys has said there are no set-in-stone rules when it comes to NIQs any longer.
If McMillan manages to interest a top-class Kiwi player in joining Munster next season or next year, the union should listen. The IRFU needs Munster to be competing at the top table again as soon as possible.
McMillan knows influential centre Nankivell well from their time working together with the Chiefs, so he’s sure to be a key sounding board, while he also coached prop John Ryan during the tighthead’s short-term stint with the Hamilton-based side.
The injection of dynamism in the front row is something McMillan is sure to have welcomed given the sight of Munster struggling to make dents on the gainline in many games over the last couple of seasons. It happened again last weekend in Glasgow.
Size and power in the tight five are crucial in rugby. McMillan’s Chiefs play eye-catching rugby, but their physicality should not be overlooked. They’re vicious in contact on their best days. McMillan will want that from Munster too.
Tighthead prop Jager staying fit and getting to his best will be key and Munster will hope the explosive Roman Salanoa can recover from his long-term knee troubles.
It would also help having Springboks lock Kleyn and 22-year-old second row Edwin Edogbo free of injury following their travails in the last couple of years. Evan O’Connell is a different kind of lock to that pair but has clear potential to kick on.
Tadhg Beirne will be a central figure in McMillan’s plans. He is Munster’s lineout leader and the Kiwi boss will be keen to ensure his tactical plans allow Beirne’s classy handling, strong decision-making, and defensive breakdown quality to shine.
McMillan is sure to be intent on helping promising young back rows like Brian Gleeson and Ruadhán Quinn establish themselves as first-team players, challenging established pros like Gavin Coombes, John Hodnett, and Alex Kendellen.
The athletically unique Tom Ahern might be someone McMillan has earmarked to succeed the retiring Peter O’Mahony as Munster’s blindside flanker. Ahern is a fine second row, but the sense remains that he is at his most effective as a wide-ranging, lineout-destroying number six. Having now turned 25, Ahern will be challenged to find greater consistency in impacting games.
McMillan would be wise to pick the brains of O’Mahony and Conor Murray before they step away at the end of the season, asking for their honest appraisal of this Munster squad’s strengths and weaknesses. Both of them have given their all for the red jersey.
Craig Casey is clearly ready to assume full control of Munster’s number nine jersey in the post-Murray era. Casey has been part of Munster’s leadership group for years now and his performances for province and country have been on a real upward trajectory. With Murray leaving, McMillan will need Paddy Patterson and Ethan Coughlan to step up the depth chart.
Nankivell will make up the crop of frontline centres with Tom Farrell and the incoming Kelly, while there is talent to work with in the back three too.
Having the fleet-footed Abrahams consistently fit and firing would help Munster hugely given his quality with ball in hand. The same applies to Diarmuid Kilgallen, who is a different winger but equally exciting. Whereas Abrahams is diminutive and darting, Kilgallen is tall and commanding.
They will have to compete aggressively for minutes given how well established and important Ireland international right wing Calvin Nash is, while the injured Shane Daly has also been hugely consistent for Munster.
Mike Haley has been the key man at fullback in recent years and is currently sidelined, but Munster will hope to see 20-year-old Ben O’Connor continue his emergence in that position.
Competition for places is exactly what Munster need and the reality is that their depth hasn’t been strong enough in recent seasons, even accounting for a couple of extensive injury crises.
There are other young guns the southern province have earmarked for rises in the coming seasons – outstanding Ireland U20s flanker Michael Foy among them – and McMillan has a good reputation for developing promising talent.
McMillan can justifiably feel that he has the raw materials to work with, all the more so given that he will have strong assistant coaches alongside him in Mike Prendergast and Denis Leamy, who know this squad very well.
One of the key aspects of McMillan’s project with the Chiefs has been getting strong alignment and clarity on their style of play but also their off-pitch culture and standards.
While McMillan is said to be a strong personality and authoritative figure, he clearly has good people skills too. What seems to have driven consistency from the Chiefs is everyone in the organisation understanding what is expected from them at all times.
They have been far less of an up-and-down team than before, which is probably why last weekend’s second-half malaise against Moana Pasifika pissed McMillan off so much.
There are similarities in that Munster seem to swing from excellence to nightmare evenings like their home defeat to Edinburgh at the end of last month too often. That night in Cork wasn’t a true picture of the quality in Munster’s squad but they allowed their standards to slip.
McMillan will be keen for that habit to disappear, while you can bet he will be keen to restore the fear factor at Thomond Park. He won there with the All Blacks XV last November.
Munster’s once outstanding home record has faded somewhat in the last couple of seasons and some of their best wins have come on the road. Thomond can still be a special place on the big nights, but it’s another point of pride that needs to be restored.
McMillan’s visit to Munster this week will have been useful in getting a sense of the mission that awaits. It also underlines his appetite for the task.
It’s hard not to get excited about his arrival. Interesting to see if he does have a signing or two up his sleeve. Wonder who it could be.
@Steve Mccarthy: I’d be happy enough if he can convince Crowley to stick around.
@Ciaran Kennedy: I would say that was his no. 1 reason for visiting
@Steve Mccarthy: I was convinced we’d see a Georgian brick layer on the plane beside Rowntree when he started, even through his tenure to the change of top brass! not to be… would love a few props.
Hope he goes well, his taking over a big club that fans are keen to get behind, the squad has a good age profile, if he can bring on the young lads a few % each season I would be exited to see where he can bring us. I wouldn’t say no to some rough diamond kiwi transfers either. Please god no injury crisis next year either.
Figure out the serious underperformance relative to heavy investment. Sort the discontent and in fighting in camp. Investigation of possible underlying S&C issues. Quite a few things on his “in tray” to turn around. All that being said, Munster have put further serious investment into a great coach. A rake of new signings coming in again too, so they should be very competitive next season. Their latest imports from Leinster are two serious players and will very quickly become first choice. Milne’s only issue is the scrum and a piit injury profile in recent times, both fixable. Barron is seriously underrated. Will be another quality Leinster addition.
@Carmine Lorenzo: no 1, what in fighting? No 2 I’d rather ye keep those 2 journeymen, they’re no better than the lads already there
@Cian Halley: A typical insular comment. you’re going to be pleasantly surprised in that case.
@Carmine Lorenzo: we don’t need yere offcuts, what in fighting?
@Carmine Lorenzo: not great if his only problem is in the scrum him being a prop but let’s see, personally I am happy with them signing on , hopefully they get good game time and they can develop to the next level. With the quantity of players the Leinster school system is throwing out Ireland needs more of these types of moves or else create a second Leinster team to play in the league the biggest concern I have is Ireland loses players like Beirne , Mike Ross , Reddan who don’t make the break through in their native Provence and either move abroad and qualify for another country or exit the game altogether .
@Cian Halley: I don’t think you understand the definition of a journeyman.
@Paul Ennis: you could have left out “the definition of a journeyman”
@Carmine Lorenzo: « the only problem with Milne is in the scrum! ». Mother of god, that’s a damning statement for a loosehead prop. You might as well call him totally useless. I’d also add that he’s very injury prone. We have a number of LH props that are good in the loose (Loughman is very good in this area), what we actually need is someone like Bleuler who can lock out the scrum so it doesn’t become a source of penalties to our opponents
@Cian Halley: you’re clueless if you think they’re just journeymen. They have been a huge coup for Munster.
@Bruce 51: Yeah honestly Bruce they are two really super players. Think you and fans will be pleasantly surprised. A fit Loughman and Milne, in whatever order, is a very good matchday combo. I honestly think Barron will quickly become first choice hooker too ahead of his namesake. Again, Barron x 2 is a punchy matchday combo. A good few new signings and a new head coach, lots of reasons for optimism for Munster honestly. I expect them to be highly competitive next year.
@Michael Corkery: Everyone says things like we need someone like Bleuler for the scrum. Our scrum is fine. It’s our line out and tight power we are lacking in. Which is what Bleuler did. His line out lifts and hard carries were what made him great. His scrum work was quite poor. Loughman is a better scrumager than Bleuler is. He just dosnt carry as hard…. even though he’s heavier.
@Michael Corkery: There is more to the modern day prop than just scrummaging. Yes it is important, but there are regularly professional games with less than 10 scrums. Leinster were destroyed last Saturday and couldn’t even win a scrum on their own feed in the second half. Still came within one Whitehouse decision from beating Bulls in their own backyard.
@Paul Ennis: the Leinster scrum collapsed when Clarkson and the AIL prop replaced Slimani and Boyle. If the latter 2 could have stayed on or you were able to bring Porter and Furlong on in their place, you’d have won that game. No scrum, no win still holds true in my book.
@Colm McLaughlin: sorry Colm but Bueler’s scrum work was not poor. We were extremely solid in the scrum when he was there and the scrum immediately became a huge liability when he went off or was absent. It’s not even arguable, the impact he had on the scrum. It was obvious. He was also good in other areas as you say. Wish we could have kept him.
@Carmine Lorenzo: The sage wisdom of the information wizard, what a load of subtle trolling. Try to be genuine just once Carmine you clown
@Michael Corkery: Or maybe if Milne had been available. He is still a better scrummager than Saroka to be fair. The point is that you have a decent prop in Milne and an opportunity to turn him into an International standard prop with a little bit of Munster type nurturing.
@Thesaltyurchin: Resorting to name calling and being outraged for outrage sake….the mask doth slip! You do seem to accuse lots of people of “trolling,” and it’s curious how you did so in this instance after a comment that praised Munster signings and an incoming coach. Unconscious bias perhaps. Maybe, just maybe, people are making conversation and, you know, having a genuine debate on a particular topic on a rugby forum… Perhaps you’d be better served putting more effort into calling out genuine trolls on here, plenty of them recently abusing multiple Leinster players. So lots of examples for you to work on!
A world class tighhead is needed, Jesus long are the days Munster had Botha….
But again that’s comes with a cost as they are paid so highly so again the Irish system isn’t as great as it’s seems…
Leinster can bring in whoever they want as they have the extra funds from their whole team being centrally contracted….
The system was good at the start but has not evolved and Munster, Ulster and Connacht are Not getting a chance because of it…
Surely there should be an idea to have maybe 3 centrally contracted players from each province to free up more money for each province to be able to buy players…
@Tom: tbh which 3 players from each Provence would you centrally contract ? You could introduce a draft system that could improve all 3 Provences but I think for now the NIQ systems should be move targeted to bring players on, looking at past muster teams our back rows came on in leaps and bounds when Jim Williams played and POC and D OC both benefitted from Langfords experience.Front row is where we struggle , we have tried several different strategies to improve here Knox , Salanoa, Jager etc but we say clearly how much better the team operated when Bueler was here . Let’s see but I suspect McMillan might be the man to change our fortunes
@Tom: The CC system didn’t need to evolve. What has happened is long running failures by Munster and Ulster to produce/keep fit players good enough to hold down places in the Irish team. What you propose is a completely different system designed to equalise the provinces and NOT to achieve CC’s objective of incentivising the provinces to develop guys who become the core of the international team
He’s already planning the strengthening of the squad …. He obviously been watching Munster from a far and also from the inside players given him feedback… Nankville and Ryan played under him in the past…. Like all great coaches you’re not waiting for the first start date before you start planning and scheming…. This is a successful coach and obviously he works hard behind the scenes and I’m sure the day Munster signed the deal with him the clock and the cogs wheels began turning.
@Den: Probs happened when Munster played them in Cork last year, maybe explains the faf around “who” in the media.
John Ryan and Stephen Archer have given their all for Munster and cannot go on for ever. Hopefully the new arrivals will match up, but we still need an experienced world class tight head.
I think milne is a very similar standard to loughman but barron is an improvement especially in the carry and ability in the wider channels with his extra pace and athleticism. Even if we had hayes, fla and horan playing for us our scrum and maul would still have struggled as we have had no power and bulk in the row since kleyn and Edwin got their injuries. With them back I’m expecting all aspects of our forward play to improve, especially our ability to get over the gainline and get some front foot ball for the backs
@scott casey: Barron is really good. Loughman probably better in the scrum but Milne is a force of nature in the loose. Only going to improve.
He’d want to find a front row…
This could be a very shrewd bit of business by Munster in getting McMillan..
He will want to hit the ground running too..
Time will tell if this works out or not.
Munster need to get the fire back in the belly and start believing in themselves too.
Also they need to start challenging Leinster too..This is crucial for Irish rugby too..Farrell will want that too.
S&C needs to be looked at and the amount of injuries, Munster has this season is unreal.
Quietly confident for next season too.
@Jim Mullally: tbh I don’t think Farrell cares if Munster are good or bad he has shown a clear bias towards Leinster but that’s bye the bye it’s up to Munster players to make it impossible for him to ignore them and to-date none have really put their hand up.
@Bruce 51: If Farrell didn’t care about the source or potential source of his Irish players, he wouldn’t be one of the best coaches in the world. I agree that he is biased, but it is a bias (which I would call loyalty) that lends to players who have delivered in the past. Examples include Healy, Earlsie, who were both given caps towards the end that they shouldn’t have and to a certain extent Sexton when he left him on the pitch in the 2023 QF. That same loyalty applied to POM this year and it turned out to be a pretty good decision. Having said all that, Farrell is the leased biased coach we have since Warren Gatland. Eddie, Deccie & Joe all had their favourites and were undone by an unwillingness to drop players.
@Paul Ennis: it’s because he is a good coach he is biased , imo he can see many players at Munster, Connacht and Ulster are probably at a similar level to their Leinster counterparts so when a 50:50call has to be made he is positively biased to pick players who are familiar with playing with the bulk of his team. Continuity has served him very well . That said I think Neinaber is ruining his master plan ( or is it Rassie?) with his defensive system. Ultimately he will be judged on results and he is clearly focused on the WC with Ireland so let’s see
@Bruce 51: There may indeed players at the other provinces who are at a similar level to the Leinster ones but, as you pointed out in your earlier post, few if any of these have been putting their hands up, in practice, with their performances for their provinces. Of course, injuries have been a big issue here. But, imo, Coombes is the only guy not in the Irish side who has consistently produced performances that push his case, and of course the Ireland captain is a no 8 who plays 80 minutes. (Not counting Casey who would be in the 23 if fit)
@Bruce 51: Hi Bruce that’s a fair point too..
I think Munster really need to step up and start competing against Leinster..
We can’t become overly reliant on Leinster to supply the bulk of the Irish Team.
Munster have the talent and we just need to use it wisely and play a lot smarter than usual. It’s not all tries but the penalty kicks and taking your points. That is crucial too and we seem to forget that at times.
With the signing of Kilgannon and Abrahams, they have solved the lack of pace in their wings. The additions of Milne and Barron are positive too, and if they 75% of their squad can stay fit, they will be a handful for anyone.
Lots of miracles required for everyone injured to return & be as good as before. Lots of very average players needing to be moved on as well.
Spare a mention for SoB too , tho he rarely plays in his position, hopefully we get to see him in the centre now that they’ve secured a few more speedy wingers.