MOST HEAD COACHES will tell you that being the big boss means you’re redirected from the very thing that drew you to the career in the first place – a love of hands-on coaching – but there is no tearing Graham Rowntree away from the scrum.
There he was at a sun-soaked Thomond Park yesterday, heading into his third season in charge but still in the thick of it as a big group of Munster forwards leathered into a series of full-on scrums. While leading Irish referee Eoghan Cross was adjudicating, Rowntree’s voice boomed out encouragement and feedback. The ex-England prop was in his element.
To be fair, it would be foolish of Munster not to continue to utilise Rowntree’s lifetime of scrum expertise even if he is the head coach and has plenty of other stuff on his plate.
Munster opened the doors of Thomond Park to a small group of journalists yesterday, inviting them to watch their main training session of the week for the second time in two years. While this access remains rare, the content of the session was familiar to those present in January 2023, when Munster were still getting to grips with a high-speed, high-intensity approach to training that was distinctly different to how things were done before.
The central portion of the session yesterday was the ‘chaos games’ in which three teams play 15 v 15 against each other on a rotating basis, swapping in and out as the action unfolds at a whirlwind pace. The coaching feedback is minimal in the moment given the sheer pace of it all, with Cross refereeing to ensure players’ discipline is tested along with their decision-making under the pressure of fatigue.
Munster do their ‘units’ work on either side of the chaos games, splitting into backs and forwards to focus on their set-piece and backline starter plays as well as the core skills required in their positions.
All of this is done with a big group of around 60 with Munster’s academy players having been fully integrated into the senior sessions since Rowntree took over in 2022. That means that when academy players like Shay McCarthy, Ben O’Connor, Ruadhán Quinn, and Brian Gleeson have been called into URC action, they’ve been ready.
19-year-old centre Gene O’Leary Kareem, who Munster have high hopes for, was among the latest academy inductees training yesterday, getting plenty of opportunities to show his skills. Only a few months ago, O’Leary Kareem was training with his schoolmates in PBC Cork, now he’s training opposite Alex Nankivell.
Shortly after the session, Munster’s head of rugby operations Ian Costello joined the media to discuss the province’s focus on producing its own players, detailing how the pathway works, as well as touching on Munster’s succession planning, recruitment, coaching, and more.
This kind of openness hasn’t always been the way in Munster and certainly isn’t the norm in professional rugby, but it was a hugely insightful discussion that illuminated the scale of the province’s commitment to producing top-class players for their senior team.
Of course, the main focus of the session yesterday was sharpening the tools for Saturday’s URC opener against Connacht. Some of Munster’s Ireland international players won’t be back until the third round of the new season but they should still be able to put together a nice blend of youngsters and seasoned pros for this inter-pro.
Most eyes were on Thaakir Abrahams, everyone keen for the latest glimpse of his razor-sharp footwork and searing acceleration. The South African wing is said to have quickly won over his new team-mates on and off the pitch.
Munster fans will be dreaming of a repeat of their 2023 URC title and a run deep into the Champions Cup knock-out stages, but the squad don’t appear to have thought too far beyond this weekend’s clash with Connacht at Thomond Park. It has been a fiery contest in recent years and Munster know the threat that’s coming their way.
In that sense, it may end up proving useful for Rowntree that his team was so poor in their second pre-season game two weekends ago against Gloucester.
“We were rubbish in the early parts of that game,” said Rowntree. “We were rubbish with some of the stuff we were doing around the contact work. We’ll only be better for it.
“It just wasn’t good enough. It allows us as coaches, particularly me, on a Monday morning to say, ‘Lads, is this us?’”
Going into their third year, this Munster coaching staff will have firm expectations about what their players should deliver. Attack coach Mike Prendergast has been layering things on since 2022 and will hope to see the set-piece delivering quality ball and Munster’s key carriers giving them gainline. When that happens, Munster’s attack tends to flow beautifully.
Skills coach Mossy Lawler naturally feeds into the attack in a big way and will want to see accurate passing and kicking.
Defence coach Denis Leamy has been able to fully embed his philosophy and after some of those jarring slips against Gloucester, will be pushing his players to bring the heat with their linespeed, tackle technique, and breakdown work. While Rowntree clearly remains heavily involved in the scrum, forwards specialist Andi Kyriacou will be aiming for a much more consistent performance from the lineout this season.
Costello and George Murray, who doubles up as a technical coach along with his lead performance analyst role, were involved on the pitch in yesterday’s session too, meaning there are plenty of hands on deck for Munster training. Tommy O’Donnell was among the academy staff present in another sign of the focus on alignment within the province.
Every single one of those coaches know that rugby is a results business and Munster’s mission starts in earnest on Saturday with the visit of Connacht. As ever with Munster, there should be plenty of spills and thrills. They just hope the right kind of chaos lies ahead.
