The dreaded “T” word is back again.
No, not “Tyrannosaurus Rex”. That would be pretty scary – I’ve seen Jurassic Park again recently – but I’m thinking about a different “T” word that’s arguably even worse. Transition. Even worse, Coaching Transition. From 1998 to 2012, Munster Rugby had about as much coaching stability as you could ask for as the game moved from the chaotic Big Bang of professionalism through the initial throes of the modern game as we know it in the 2000s and up to the doorstep of the modern era. Declan Kidney was the All-Father of Munster Rugby during that 14 year period bar a three-season stretch between June 2002 – when Kidney left in the aftermath of a defeat to Leicester in the Heineken Cup final to be an assistant at Ireland – and April 2005 when he returned to the club after a spell at Dragons and Leinster.
When Kidney left to coach Ireland in 2008, he did so as a double European champion and his work was continued by the man he hired, Tony McGahan, who joined Munster as backs coach when Kidney returned in 2005. McGahan coached Munster for four seasons to mixed success – two league trophies but some tough losses in Europe – until a more radical change was required.
All in all, that 14-year spell of Kidney > Gaffney > Kidney > McGahan won nine trophies and produced some all-time great players for Munster and Ireland. Fourteen years, fourteen seasons, nine trophies, three head coaches. Stability begets success more often than not. In the 10 seasons since then, Munster have had four different head coaches and multiple changes unit coaching. Rob Penney, Anthony Foley, Rassie Erasmus and Johann Van Graan with a further change to be made at the end of this season. That middle spell of the last decade gets a little bit confusing because there is an element of stability there – Foley was a forwards coach under Penney before taking over after Penney’s departure and Erasmus initially came in as a Director of Rugby above Foley, instead of replacing him directly – but for the most part, we rarely got a spell of consistency when it came to the grand scheme of things until quite recently.
A solo head coach or Director of Rugby doesn’t just fill out the teamsheet and lead training – they determine direction. They have the final say on inward recruitment, outward departures, player development, who to promote from the academy, what parameters are in place when it comes to players in the academy intake – no props under a certain height/weight bar extreme circumstances, only second-row players north of 6’6″ etc – and all of these factors have long term effects that need multiple seasons to pay off.
A good coach can turn around results in the short term, a great coach does that while also building sustainable success over the long term.
I think Johann Van Graan falls somewhere between these two descriptors. Only the most churlish and short-sighted among us could describe Van Graan as, at the very least, a good coach. I think his record at Munster shows that since November 2017. Yes, I know, no trophies. And, to be completely fair, Van Graan’s Munster was consistently outclassed when it counts by the top sides in Europe in any given season – Racing 92, Saracens, Toulouse and Leinster.
That last one is the real problem.
I think the perception of what Van Graan has managed at Munster would be quite a bit better if it didn’t coincide with a generational Leinster side that dominates Irish jerseys, has monopolised the domestic league for the last four seasons and, while they’ve fallen flat at the top end in Europe in the years since 2018, they rightly expect to win the Heineken Champions Cup every season.
Munster aspire to that level – and have been since the balance of power shifted in 2009 – and that’s the problem. Any positives down south that don’t include lifting trophies when Leinster have won four URC’s in a row and have HD video of a Heineken Cup win in the recent past are going to look like a dropped birthday cake in comparison.
So the steady, incremental growth that Van Graan has achieved at Munster since he arrived mid-season in 2017 just doesn’t look good in comparison. Say what you like about Van Graan – and a lot do just that – but in his years of relative consistency, unit coaching disruption aside, his side have only ever lost big knockout games to the premier sides I’ve mentioned. Whenever Munster have lost killer knockout games in the URC, it’s been to Leinster. Whenever Munster have lost killer games in Europe, it’s been to the Saracens, Racing 92 or Toulouse.
We have progressed to the point that we’re still only losing to these teams in big games, who have themselves improved. If we weren’t progressing, we wouldn’t even be getting to the point where we’d be losing to those sides, we’d be beaten by the other sides who are also improving beneath our level. Is that good enough? No. Is it somewhat depressing? Yes.
But it is what it is.
Ours is a “crisis” that every side below us would take in a heartbeat but that’s scant consolation when you are judged on lifting trophies and you haven’t lifted trophies.
That’s why these next coaching hires are so important.
A club’s status is not an immutable thing.
Munster are one of the biggest clubs and rugby brands in the world right now but we’re another 10 years of not lifting a trophy away from that becoming an anachronism. A club that used to be great. It would be a mistake to think that it can’t happen here. It doesn’t have to be a disastrous thing, like the falls Richmond, Biarritz Olympique, Perpignan or Colomiers suffered but it can be something of a slow deflation. Think Bath, Stade Francais, Northampton – nobody planned for them to slip away from the top end of European rugby but it happened all the same.
Everyone involved at those clubs on the game-side had a strategy that they were sure would work but it still ended in entropy. We talk about the boiling frog metaphor all the time but I think the unboiled egg is nearly more appropriate when it comes to describing a slow decline. If you put an egg into water that seems hot enough but isn’t, it’ll slowly cool until all you’re left with is a raw egg and cold water.
Don’t think it can’t happen here.
Munster are at something of a hinge point. We might well win something this season – 2021/22 has a feeling that anything could happen – but right now I’d be anywhere from 60/40 to 70/30 that we could knock off Leinster, Racing 92 or Toulouse in a knockout game. Maybe those numbers change with a few injuries to them and not to us, but I think that’s a fair read of the situation as it currently stands.
One way or the other, we will be moving to a new coaching core this offseason when Stephen Larkham and Johann Van Graan depart. We might also be looking for a new defence coach but that has yet to be confirmed officially. Let’s put it this way, I wouldn’t be too shocked to see JP Ferreira go with Van Graan to Bath, as much as I’d like to keep him here.
Even if Ferreria stays, that’s a large coaching transition at the top of the food chain and there’s no way around that. At a board room level, the IRFU and Munster will have to make a decision on our direction for the next three seasons at the very least. From a hiring perspective, they will have to navigate the Venn Diagram of Who’s Available, Who Wants The Job, Who’s Good Enough and Who’s Got The Qualities We’re Looking For.
What are those qualities?
For me, it’ll be a demonstrated track record of bringing through young players and playing a winning brand of Cruiserweight rugby. What do I mean by Cruiserweight rugby? I mean a style of play that suits what we have in the pack at the moment and what we expect to have in the next two or three seasons. We still need a pack that competes physically – that is non-negotiable – but the modern game is moving towards a more ball-dominant, high tempo, high skill contest so our coaching has to reflect that before it’s what everyone is doing.
The physical contest will always be there but those points of contact are getting further and further apart at a higher tempo than ever before so your game has to reflect that. I’d go for someone who has demonstrated competence with running a dual playmaker offence too, but the right guy – be it the head coach or attack coach – will be a progressive, forward-thinking, modern offensive specialist. Ideally, I think we want Joe Schmidt before he became The Joe Schmidt.
Stephen Larkham has added layers to our offensive output – and some much-needed complexity – during his three-year spell and the next man will have solid foundations to build from as a result. That said, I do feel there are offensive levels for us to build to, especially with the core of young playmakers we have coming through in the backs.
The idea of youth is important because, from a development perspective, I think Munster are close to where Leinster were in 2015/16 – with a core of young players ready to break through to that next level. Our coaches have to be empowered to back those young players en-masse and given the resources to “stake” them into the first team, as you would with a young tree.
If you want to properly back a Scott Buckley, you do that with an explosive power hooker archetype he can split the position with role for role and tangle with during training. Ahern should be physically ready to step up into a more regular role next season with guys like Knox, Salanoa, Josh Wycherley, Hodnett, Crowley and others. That creates a big opportunity for a coaching set-up to be part of something fresh. But that transition – and it’s coming – needs to be run by the right people and backed with time. This can’t be Munster guys installed for optic’s sake, it has to be the right people to capitalise on the academy work of the last five years in a real, tangible way. If this is fumbled, it’ll take a deeper, harder reset.
The transition to this new coaching setup doesn’t need to be too difficult. The foundations are there and performance levels are almost where they need to be. The right people in charge with a fresh pair of eyes and no preconceptions can be a launching point to where Munster want, and need, to be.
