WHETHER OR NOT he was supposed to divulge on television the contents of a recent conversation with Johann Graan, Victor Matfield perked the ears — or, more accurately, drew the eyes — of Irish rugby fans during a South African broadcast of Munster versus Ulster on Saturday night.
The channel on which Matfield is a pundit, SuperSport, is unavailable in Ireland, and so the Springbok legend’s recap of his personal chat with the departing Munster boss reached Ireland firstly in the form of tweets posted by viewers in South Africa.
Those tweets — one of which quoted Matfield as saying the Bath-bound Van Graan had grown frustrated that ‘all the good players go to Leinster’, and another which cited David Nucifora’s influence on his day job — were dismissed off-hand by Van Graan himself following 14-man Munster’s gutsy comeback victory at Thomond Park.
“I am certainly not going to react to Twitter conversations,” Van Graan said. “I don’t even have Twitter.”
However, Matfield’s words were indeed part of a real-life conversation from which SuperSport have since published the footage.
“I spoke to Johann van Graan and, for him, it’s very difficult,” Matfield said in studio, where he was working alongside presenter Owen Nkumane and fellow pundits Gcobani Bobo and Nick Mallett.
For him, his pack is very important; his tight five. So, he brought in RG Snyman, he brought in [Jason] Jenkins — both of them out. So, there’s two big South African guys that he thought were going to give him that power game — especially the way he wants to play — not there. So, he’s not getting that go-forward from that tight five that he was thinking he would get. So, very difficult at the moment.
On his conversation with Van Graan about his move to Bath, Matfield said:
He’s excited. Look, he feels bad because he really enjoyed his time at Munster. He loves the people there. But he said it’s very difficult, he said… All the great players go to Leinster. So, he has to compete [with that], he comes second in every competition but he doesn’t win trophies, Leinster have got this amazing team… And again, financially, he’s trying to [sign] the guys from outside to make a difference.
“The local players, most of them, go to Leinster,” Matfield reiterated, likely alluding to the IRFU’s reliance on the schools pathway and Leinster’s natural advantages on that front. “So, it’s very hard.”
Throughout the piece, Matfield appeared to vaguely hint at Van Graan being frustrated with a lack of autonomy at Munster relative to that which he should be granted in England. “Going to Bath”, the former Springbok said, “he will get opportunities to build a squad — and that’s what he likes. He wants to build a squad, get people in, get something for four, five, six years and build something amazing in Bath.”
Asked if he got the sense that Van Graan has ‘grown’ as a coach after four years at Munster, Matfield began by saying that his fellow South African “gets a lot from how Ireland run the whole system, as well”.
“He’s almost under the director of Irish rugby (David Nucifora). He (Nucifora) actually controls everything, understand. He controls everything.
“And as well”, Matfield added, “he’s got some great coaches with him. He’s got a great, experienced English coach (Graham Rowntree), he’s got [Stephen] Larkham — different style. So, yeah, he’s grown a lot and I think he’s one of the great young coaches in South Africa that will come back at some stage and hopefully coach the Springboks.”
I’d take this one with a pinch of salt. “All the great players go to Leinster”. This is plainly not true. Leinster may have a bigger catchment area, but not all the great players play for them. There are great players in all of the provinces.
However, I think that’s there’s a resistance to change (or at least the appearance of) in the Munster squad that’s not evident at the other provinces.
Penny tried to change the style of play and that went no where, except sending him away. Munster continued use of attrition rugby has passed its use by date. Munster haven’t been without trophies because of the lack of talent, it’s there in abundance. It’s not changing the way they play that has held it back.
@Con Cussed: Rob Penney didn’t have the players to play an expansive game. He had good locks, but aging half backs, and many of the rest of the players were not of sufficient quality. Take one look at the changes in the squad during his tenure and you’ll see mostly names you don’t recognize. Half of the names you DO recognize were coming closer to the end of their professional careers. ROG retired, stringer moved on, Howlett got injured and retired, Wian Du Preez moved on. Penney brought them to a HCup final against clermont and lost by 4 points.
Have a look and tell me, how test quality players were in that squad?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013%E2%80%9314_Munster_Rugby_season?wprov=sfti1
@Con Cussed: Agree, they don’t go to Leinster.. they are born there due to larger population
@B Collins: Penney wasn’t a good coach. The style of rugby he tried to play didn’t work at Waratahs either. Same lateral rugby with no metres made until players are ushered into touch. Can’t blame the squad for that because he had some quality players. Casey Lualala, James Downey, Keith Earls, Zebo. All well capable of playing that style of rugby. He got to two European semi finals but Munster barely qualified from two very easy groups. A red card against Racing in final home game and then miracle last minute try from JJ away to worst Perpignan team in decades papered over the cracks. When they started playing more direct rugby like the quarter final against Quins they gave a glimpse of their potential if coached properly. No clubs in Europe sought Penney after it. Not surprising really.
Bigger news than this lads….
He should probably get off Twitter and actually do some proper research into what exactly he’s talking about. The majority of the Leinster squad are from Leinster. Not Munster. I think Seán Cronin is the only Munster born player in the squad. And hes practixally retired. He also failed to aknowledge that Joey Carbery, Tadhg Beirne two very good ex Leinster players are thriving woth the club. Roman Salanoa & Rowan Osborne are also ex Leinster too. He also said recently that rugby needs Israel Folou back playing…which it definitely doesn’t. He’s not being very subtle with his attention seeking haha
@Harry O’Callaghan: he’s a giving over 2 sentances in explaining the disparity at the moment in terms of quality to SA audience. subtleties like that is a bit of a side track…
Think some things got lost in translation there!
I mean, if squad building is what JVG likes to do most, I would say he’s been very successful in Munster and credit where it’s due for that because he will hand off a much better squad than he inherited. He was right about needing more power in the tight five and Snyman would have added an additional threat there. I imagine Matfield doesn’t really understand the system here, so I would interpret his words to mean that Leinster have a much bigger playing population and a very strong schools system feeding into the provincial side. Storm in a teacup really. He’s not said anything controversial.
That’s just like his opinion, man
@Odockatee: nice cardigan