[su_dropcap style=”flat” size=”4″]H[/su_dropcap]ow do you replace a player like Ronan O’Gara? I genuinely don’t believe that you can, at least not right away. When O’Gara walked away from the game and off to Paris in the summer of 2013, he left a hole that even the best preparations couldn’t adequately fill.
O’Gara’s performance ay the Stade Velodrome in a losing effort to ASM Clermont Auvergne in the Heineken Cup semi-final was a fitting reminder of what O’Gara could do but by the end of the 2012/13 season, I think it was the right time for him to hang up the boots.
The style of play we were starting to develop under Rob Penney and Simon Mannix seemed to work that bit better with Keatley’s balanced game from first receiver. Keatley might not have had the kicking ability, tactical appreciation or passing range that O’Gara had at his peak but by 2012/13, Keatley looked like he had the kind of running threat that would fully realise the kind of game that Rob Penney was looking to implement.
Ian Keatley’s first season as Munster’s primary flyhalf would see him partnered at halfback by Conor Murray, who was fresh from a hugely successful 2013 Lions series that saw him make two important appearances off the bench in the tests. The changes in Munster didn’t stop there either; after a successful spell as Ireland captain on the 2013 Summer Tour, Peter O’Mahony was named Munster’s new captain at just 23 years of age after Doug Howlett’s retirement in the summer due to injury.
Marcus Horan and Wian Du Preez both left the province to be replaced by Dave Kilcoyne and a newly promoted James Cronin. In the backline, Munster made real moves in the back three by signing the incredibly highly rated Andrew Conway from Leinster and Gerhard Van Den Heever from the Stormers with a view to possibly utilising him as a project player.
Munster also promoted Niall Scannell, Duncan Casey, Ronan O’Mahony and Cian Bohane to senior deals. James Cronin’s rise from the academy to first-team squad status was relatively meteoric; he went from an academy deal to being a regular Heineken Cup bench replacement in his first season and looked like a foundational player alongside Kilcoyne. Both men had a similar age profile and their specialities seemed to dovetail nicely; Cronin was an abrasive scrummager, jackal threat and clever ball handler while Kilcoyne was the explosive, top-end, supremely aggressive ball carrier that we’d long been looking for in the front row.
The lock progression chart, on the other hand, was beginning to stagnate. We were still hugely reliant on Paul O’Connell in 2013/14 and, even though Donnacha Ryan had emerged as a clear successor, that was still only one of the positions filled with a test standard operator. Donncha O’Callaghan was still in great nick at this stage – he would go onto play professionally at a high level for another five seasons, to give you an idea of what kind of nick we’re talking about here – but there was a clear need for Munster to get the succession chains moving again.
Ian Nagle, long touted as being a potential foundation level player, was starting to look like a guy who Munster would have to move on from. He started against Zebre at the start of 2013/14 but injured a tendon in his foot and that would be a continuance of consistent, persistent injuries. He’d go on loan to Newcastle Falcons at the end of the season but would get injured in his first game. Nagle would choose to leave the professional game at the end of the season to pursue other opportunities in the US. Hardly the outcome you’d have predicted after his man of the match performance against Australia three years earlier, but bad luck and circumstance interjected again and again to halt his progress.
At this stage, Munster were just a season away from O’Connell deciding on a move to Toulon after the 2015 World Cup but even without that agitating factor, Munster’s need to move on from O’Connell was already at a critical point. It was becoming clear that whatever happened, Ian Nagle would not be part of the solution going forward.
Dave Foley was the next in line but he wouldn’t make his real breakthrough until 2014/15 when he was 26 years of age but even then, that opportunity mainly happened because of a serious toe injury to Donnacha Ryan that limited him to just five starts all season.
At hooker, Munster lost Mike Sherry to an ACL injury in November 2013 and, sensibly, decided to have his shoulder fixed up while he was out. Complications with that shoulder issue would keep Sherry out for 21 months. That meant that Damian Varley took over the vast majority of Munster’s workload at hooker for the rest of the season before he missed the entirety of 2014/15 because of an injury that would ultimately force him into retirement.
Duncan Casey was the next guy off the rank around this time period but he was still relatively inexperienced. He would suffer a serious pectoral injury in 2015/16 that would force him to miss almost the entirety of the post-Varley season. That lead to Munster signing Eusebio Guiñazú on a short term deal that was extended to the end of 2015/16.
Injuries were already beginning to take their toll on key, foundational and CORE 1 players.
***
Rob Penney’s 2013/14 was pretty decent, all told. There was still some disappointing performances – an early-season loss to Treviso that saw four Munster players sin-binned, with three of those happening in the last 10 minutes.
There was still a few grumbles with the style of play – and a few bumpy results during the season – but we finished top of the pool in the Heineken Cup, soundly beat Toulouse in a home quarter-final before falling short to a Toulon side on their way to a third Heineken Cup in a row.
That quarter-final win over Toulouse was CJ Stander’s breakout performance after a season where he, for whatever reason, was unable to displace James Coughlan and, in the absence of the injured Peter O’Mahony, Stander would continue to excel for the rest of the season.
Munster narrowly missed out on a PRO12 final by losing away to the Glasgow Warriors in Scotstoun but the biggest news of the season was Penney’s decision not to take up the additional year at the end of his contract. Rob Penney initially signed on a 2+1 contract – relatively common in rugby – that would allow either party to opt-out at the end of the initial two years before the final year kicked in. That potential three year deal would have brought Munster up to the 2015 World Cup but Penney, with longer-term offers in Japan, chose not to take up the third year, which came as a bit of a surprise to Munster.
“I know they were eager for him to stay for another year and I think it’s a pity he won’t be staying,” said Paul O’Connell when asked about the situation in Carton House on the day the departure was announced.
“It’s a shock; I suppose I’d heard rumours. It’s disappointing, but he’s got to do what’s right for his family.”
That decision, taken relatively late in the season, left Munster in a bit of a bind when it came to coaching succession. Penney wanted more than the contracted extra year on his deal and Munster, it would seem, wanted to abide by the 2+1 agreed initially.
“I am disappointed to be leaving Munster as I have thoroughly enjoyed my time here,” said Penney in a statement. “I have to take this opportunity presented to me and prioritise my family and personal circumstances at this time.”
Ultimately, Munster promoted forward coach Anthony Foley to the role of head coach for the following season and placed a relatively inexperienced – but entirely Munster developed – set of coaches around him, namely Brian Walsh as back’s coach, Jerry Flannery as scrum coach, Ian Costello as skills and defence coach with Mick O’Driscoll as a technical advisor.
The 2014/15 season could hardly have started any worse.
In August 2014, right before the season, a document detailing every player’s individual strengths and weaknesses was inadvertently emailed to the squad. Look, mistakes happen, and I’m not listing it here to dunk on anyone – email mistakes happen every single day in all kinds of organisations – I’m talking about it because a list just like that one is floating around between the coaches and DORs of every top club and nation on the planet.
This is the ugly business of squad building that I’ve glossed over with my Priority Replacement Lists and CORE 1, SQUAD 2 and PRIORITY 1/2/3 designations. Behind those terms are human beings with lives, feelings, ambitions and bills to pay. As a Head Coach or Director of Rugby, you are assessing these human beings every day, every week, every month to see if they’re of the sufficient calibre to allow you to do your job to the level expected of you and within the budget constraints placed on you. We can sometimes get caught up in the 80 minutes at the weekend but that’s the tip of the iceberg. It’s not a small tip, because match day performance plays a big part in how a player is perceived, but when it comes to contracting a squad over a period of 1/2/3 seasons, you will make a lot of decisions based on the things that happen “below the waterline” so to speak.
Is a player a bad trainer? Are they a joker that entertains the group or distracts the group from their job? You best believe that’s on a list somewhere. Is a player constantly late for team meetings? The man in charge has noticed it and is trying to work out whether the player just doesn’t give a shit about the group’s time or whether he’s too stupid to keep time properly. Either way, it’s on a list somewhere. Is a player too light? Are they losing collisions they shouldn’t be losing? Or are they too heavy? Are they gassing out on the field? Are they not progressing with their skillset? Are they lacking commitment to putting in extra work? Are they injured too often? All of these things are on a list somewhere and, if you’re a player, you’ve probably been told where you need to shape up if you need to shape up.
All of these things dictate how much you get offered, how long you get offered for or if you get an offer at all.
The other part of the equation is the dreaded “RELEASE” column because that’s for guys who the coaches think are not good enough to be contracted at their current value or less, and are actively pursuing replacement players on the payroll. The players on the release list are probably doing their best. They are training hard, they are keeping in shape, they are turning up for meetings… but they just aren’t good enough and, in the coaching group’s opinion, they would be better served to pursue their career elsewhere.
This is the worst part of coaching. Dropping guys for games doesn’t even come close because, while they might be gutted not to play, they still have a job. When you have to bring a player in to tell them that there isn’t a contract for them… it’s a tough gig. Sometimes you get “lucky” and the player you were cutting anyway gets an offer elsewhere that makes sense to them but that’s rare enough. Not as tough as being told you don’t have a contract next season and being forced to look for another club, but it’s pretty hard all the same.
This is the real hard work for a DOR.
You have to cut the guys that are lowering your standards in training and on the field or you’ll be the person that gets cut. Poor performance doesn’t just happen – it’s a collection of lowered standards that starts on the training field on Monday and then spreads to the match field on Saturday. It is the opposite of the boiled frog metaphor.
You want your squad to be a boiling pot of water. All the players at the bottom should be trying to bubble up to the top, so much so that the guys on the top have to keep rising to stay on top. It should be uncomfortable. It should be harsh. It should push you every day to try to get to the top.
But if you’re not careful with your standards, the group will fall into more comfortable, lukewarm water. It’s the easiest thing in the world to do. Maybe we’ll give the lad another year deal to get himself right. It’s only fair, he came up through the academy. We’ll make sure the lad who’s late to training and arses around half the time knows he needs to straighten up before we give him another two years, he’s got potential.
You’ll look around one day and wonder what happened? How did it get like this?
You need to crank up the heat and ensure those who can’t take it get removed before they cool you down.
***
Despite Penney’s decision to move on, our squad was still in relatively good shape heading into a World Cup year.
We had brought Robin Copeland to the club during the off-season – he was coming off the back of one of the best individual seasons I’ve ever seen – and big things were expected of him after his heroics at Cardiff.
Elsewhere in the back row, Niall Ronan was forced to retire during the off-season and James Coughlan took up the offer of a move to Pau, leaving a senior back row of Paddy Butler, Peter O’Mahony, Tommy O’Donnell and a newly re-signed CJ Stander, who had risen to be a consistent, top-class performer by the time 2014/15 rolled around.
The departing Laulala and Downey were covered by playing Denis Hurley at #12 and using a combination of Andrew Smith on a one year deal and Pat Howard on a short term contract to shore up the #13 shirt as Keith Earls missed the first half of the season through injury.
The debate over the #10 shirt was really starting to kick off this season. At this stage in his career at Munster, I think it was fair to say that Ian Keatley wasn’t commanding the same kind of gravitas of the man who came before him. In a way, how could he? Every missed penalty and mistake was held up to O’Gara’s totemic highlights. It wasn’t that Keatley was playing poorly – he was actually playing quite well – but at this stage in his career, Keatley was operating under his third attack coach in four seasons and topping out as a good, but not a top-test level flyhalf.
This is one of those difficult designations that I spoke about earlier but when you compare Keatley to his contemporary at the time – Johnathan Sexton – you can see where he stood on the grading chart. That doesn’t mean that Keatley wasn’t capable of good, or even great moments – he absolutely was – but at 28 years of age, it seemed that the kick on to be the top-class, test challenger for Sexton that Munster needed him to be looked unlikely to happen.
Munster’s signing of Tyler Bleyendaal during the off-season was a nod to this – even though he arrived injured – and the emergence of JJ Hanrahan certainly complicated things. Hanrahan bounced between the bench, fullback, centre and flyhalf during 2014/15 as he competed with Keatley but he could never quite dislodge him for the big games. Hanrahan chose to move to Northampton at the end of the season, despite Munster’s offer of a three-year deal.
Munster started 2014/15 relatively well under Anthony Foley.
Despite losing two of our first three home games, we managed to beat Leinster in the Aviva – something of a rarity since 2009 – and backed that up with a win over the Scarlets at home before going two for two in the Champions Cup.
We beat Sale at the AJ Bell thanks to Ian Keatley’s last-minute drop goal.
And then beat a really handy Saracen’s side in Thomond Park. Things were looking up. We won the next three PRO12 games before the resumption of European action but we would lose to Clermont twice in a row during the back to back series in December. Losing at home in Europe was still a shock at this point and that defeat against Clermont on a wet Limerick evening showed some disappointing failings against a big, bruising pack.
The return game in Stade Marcel Michelin was closer and we managed to come away with a losing bonus point thanks to a late Duncan Casey try and some flawless goal kicking from Ian Keatley. That put big pressure on the away game against Saracens but we fell well short in Allianz Park, losing 33-10. We failed to qualify for Europe for only the second time in 17 years.
We rallied for the rest of the season, making a PRO12 final only to lose badly to Glasgow Warriors in Ravenhill. The manner of the PRO12 final loss coupled with three disappointing reality checks in Europe earlier in the season hammered home that Munster needed a bit of a reboot. Our foundational and CORE 1 players from just a season or two prior were being undermined by injury, coaching changes and the happenstance of selection.
Paddy Butler – one of the highest-rated prospects of a few seasons prior – saw himself struggling for game time behind Copeland, Stander and O’Donnell. With Jack O’Dongohue coming up in the rearview mirror, Butler chose to leave for Pau at the end of his deal along with Sean Dougall.
Paul O’Connell – one year into a two-year contract signed in 2014 – negotiated a move to Toulon after the World Cup with Munster and IRFU’s blessing and that merely accelerated what we already knew would come anyway. His original contract gave Munster another year to put the pieces together but we were pretty confident in the summer of 2015 that Dave Foley – freshly capped the previous November – would be the man to partner Donnacha Ryan going forward. Donncha O’Callaghan would provide cover, as would the by now hugely experienced Billy Holland and Munster would add another experienced head to the mix by signing Mark Chisholm in August 2015 before the World Cup began in earnest.
In addition to Chisholm, we’d signed Jordan Coghlan from Leinster to compete at openside, re-signed Tomás O’Leary from London Irish but our statement signing was getting Francis Saili, a capped All Black midfielder, from the Blues on a two-year deal.
Munster had 24 players in the academy at the end of 2014/15 and there was high hopes for a few of them, going on what I remember at the time. John Madigan certainly had the size in the second row – 6’6″ and 19 stone – and there was a fair bit of positive chat about Brian Scott, Conor Oliver, Rory Scannell, Alex Wootton, Dan Goggin, Stephen Fitzgerald and Bill Johnston, in particular.
We would head into the post-2015 World Cup cycle under pressure in a number of positions as injury and a disruption of the chains of succession would take their toll.
