THE CHANGES CONTINUE to come thick and fast at Munster and yesterday was another busy one at their HPC in Limerick. As the squad went through their most demanding training day of the week ahead of Saturday’s Champions Cup opener with Stade Francais, the province announced Chris Boyd was coming on board as a ‘performance consultant.’

The New Zealander’s voice will fill some of the space left by Graham Rowntree’s departure, with Boyd set to work alongside the remaining Munster coaching team, who continue to steer the ship in the absence of a permanent head coach.

Ian Costello, Munster’s Head of Operations and interim head coach, explained how it will all work. For a start, Boyd will arrive in Limerick later this week and will not be working directly with the playing staff.

“No, everything will continue as normal. So the coaching functions will be exactly the same, my role will continue as interim, Mike [Prendergast] doing the attack, Denis [Leamy] doing defence.

“What he’s here for is literally to support us, and that’s probably where he stands out in terms of his expertise, he’s done that now with the Highlanders, with Tonga, with World Rugby, with New Zealand. So definitely coach development would be one area he’d be really strong in, but right across all areas, our performance support. Can he add another set of eyes as a sounding board to bounce things off and keep adding to what we’re doing at the moment?”

Munster’s search for Rowntree’s replacement remains ongoing, with Costello central to that process alongside his responsibilities as interim head coach.

Boyd will not be involved in the recruitment process, and will arrive in Limerick amid a busy period of change. Andi Kyriacou left his role as forwards coach two weeks ago, while it has also emerged that Munster’s Head of Athletic Performance, Ged McNamara, is absent on personal leave. The IRFU’s Head of Athletic Performance & Science, Nick Winkelman, is currently assisting Munster’s S&C staff in McNamara’s absence. Aled Walters, Head of Athletic Performance for the Ireland men’s team, was also in attendance at training yesterday, with Munster placing a big focus on their S&C work after a challenging time with injuries.

Ian Costello and Aled Walters at Munster training yesterday. Dan Sheridan / INPHO Dan Sheridan / INPHO / INPHO

Costello provided an update on the search for Rowntree’s successor.

“We want to make sure that we spread the net wide enough and we’re very clear about what we’re looking for and making sure we take our time to get the right candidate.

“We do stuff like this all the time. Someone like Chris coming in would be a fantastic addition. Nick Winkleman has been around, Sean Ryan [Ireland women's team Leadership & Culture lead] from the IRFU. We use Darragh Sheridan [IRFU Head Of High Performance Coach Development] regularly and anything really that can add to what we’re doing.

I suppose it’s stressing that, you know, things feel really good in here at the moment. There’s a lot more stability than what might appear on the outside. We’ve had a good month to reset, a good month to refocus on our game and what we want to work on.

“And now it feels like a really good time for someone like Chris to come in and add to that really and support everything we do across performance.”

Costello was asked if Munster are looking to hire someone with previous experience as a head coach.

“Again, it probably depends on the candidate. You guys will have speculated about who might be, you know, a candidate within the building. And there’ll be lots of interest outside the building. There has been and will be, we won’t get into individual candidates. But again, it’s looking at the CV, the experience, the fit.

“And I think us being at a stage where we’re a few years into our integrated model and our alignment as a club and we really are zipped up top to bottom.

IRFU Head of Athletic Performance and Science Nick Winkelman was also in Limerick yesterday, Dan Sheridan / INPHO Dan Sheridan / INPHO / INPHO

“And there’s been a bit of turbulence in the last period, but we’re very happy with the direction of travel because a lot of work has gone into that. So it’s finding the right person that will come in and complement that, add to it and evolve to that. That’s probably the essential criteria.”

Last weekend’s URC win over the Lions was Munster’s first outing since the meeting with an All Blacks XV in early November – a game which arrived just a few days after Rowntree’s departure was confirmed.

In the time since, Munster have looked at their training plan and made some changes to the way they prepare. 

“One of the key things we looked at is how we’ve been training and how it matches up with our statistics in games,” Costello explains.

And we feel our point of difference is probably around unstructured rugby. So we probably lean towards doing more structured work, more around our set-piece attack and defence. So if you look at it like a pie chart, we were weighted more to structured than unstructured.

“Our DNA is developed under Mike and Denis into that being our area of strength. So when we looked at our stats, it probably matched how we were training.

“We’ve had a real focus on tight transitions, speed. If you said to me what would be the one thing you would focus on more than anything else, to make those things function we talk about, is speed. So we’re training really, really quick, but each day has to feel a bit different. So the planning is important. One day we learn, we kind of install.

“Tuesday is our biggest day and it’s really dense and high speed, and then Thursday is like a switch on and off. We’re on, and then we’re off, and then we’re on. So it’s all about being quick.”

Costello feels some early results were evident in the Lions win, where Munster scored three tries on transition or unstructured play.

He also points to a ball-in-play time of 42 minutes. The previous high this season was 36 minutes.

“We’ve been working towards can we bring teams to 40 (minutes)?

“We have a very good track record when we get to 40. Our win ratio when we get to 40 minutes is high. But it’s very easy to say we’ll get to 42 minutes, but we have to go back and get the insights we needed, plan really well around our training and then how that transfers to our game. And that’s the bit that’s really exciting, that’s the bit where we’re evolving nicely.”