I’m going to start this final Rebuilding the Big Red Machine article off with another hot take and it’s this. Midfield has been a problem combination for Munster in every professional season we’ve played bar 2005/2006 and 2007/2008.
The combination of Halstead and Murphy in the initial part of 2005/06 was the perfect combination of a bludgeon at #12 with a slashing runner at #13 that was just as effective with the rounded skillset of John Kelly in the #13 jersey. In 2007/2008, we had the best Munster midfield combination we’ve ever had, in my opinion. Rua Tipoki was the classic “half a second ahead of everyone else” baller at either #12 or #13 that, sure, wasn’t the athlete he might have been in his twenties but he more than made up for that with every scrap of veteran craftiness going. Lifeimi Mafi was explosive, could step you on an escalator and had an offloading game that was perfectly suited to a player as smart as Tipoki.
Together they were as balanced and as dangerous as any pairing we have had before or since, in my opinion.
We’ve had better players, I think – Earls had a great breakout season at #13, Francis Saili was a really skilled player that would have flourished in a more advanced system, Chris Farrell is consistently underrated and Damian De Allende is genuinely world-class – but no combination had that perfect balance that was perfectly suited to the game as it was in 2007/08 and specifically what Munster had at #10 and in the back three.
So when I say that a combination like this isn’t just about the two players in question but how those two players connect with the rest of your attacking scheme, that’s what I mean. For the last number of years, Munster have been searching for that very same combination. On paper, De Allende and Farrell should have been an elite combination. Both of them are huge ball carriers and impactful defenders with decent short to long-range passing between the two of them. Like I said, on paper, it really should have worked. They were the biggest midfield we’ve ever fielded from a physical perspective but we were rarely able to use them to their full potential as a combination.
When De Allende left at the end of his deal this past July, it was with a hint of sadness, sure, but a palpable feeling that we rarely saw him at his best during his time here. That isn’t on De Allende so much as it is on the system he was playing in.
De Allende didn’t stop being world-class. We saw that class in flashes across different games and, for me anyway, his performance levels as an individual were rarely so poor as to be notable. His usage was the main issue. Last season De Allende’s season was interrupted by a few niggles but he still managed two five-star and two four-star performances for a 3.1 star average across the campaign.
We didn’t really get De Allende – one of the best ball-carrying midfielders in the game – on-ball enough in situations where he could do what he’s best at offensively and we didn’t play a kicking game that got the best out of his defensive qualities either.
De Allende was, in essence, replaced by Malakai Fekitoa who we signed on a two-year contract from Wasps. It’s like-for-like in that Fekitoa is a world-class midfielder coming in on big money but they are very different players in practicality.
Munster initially believed they had Fekitoa signed in early January 2022 after speaking with him through December but that deal was complicated by the Tongan volcano in mid-January. By all accounts, Fekitoa rejected Munster around that time before eventually changing his mind and signing on a hefty two-year deal that will take him up to the end of 2023-24. Fekitoa is many things but a rotation option isn’t one of them – he’s been signed to be a CORE 1 starter and he’s far from a luxury player, as has been theorised elsewhere. It’s hard to emphasise just how important the midfield is to any team with proper ambitions. You have to have an elite combination there if you want to win trophies. La Rochelle, for example, were highly reliant on Will Skelton giving them that top-end physical edge in big games but they were equally reliant on the excellent Jonathan Danty who O’Gara signed from Stade Francais the previous offseason. His combination with Jérémy Sinzelle – which was often role swapped with Levani Botia – gave them real balance week to week and it was part of the reason they won a European Cup.
Leicester Tigers were powered to a Premiership title by an oversized kicking game, a big pack capable of underpinning that kicking game and a midfield pairing of Guy Porter/Dan Kelly and Matias Moroni, who were mobile enough to cover the edges of the high-pressure kicking game like extra wingers, smothering defenders and well rounded enough offensive players to support their power winger and heavy strike running fullback build in the back three.
They were perfectly balanced to the squad around them and the game plan.
For Munster in December/January, we knew that we were going to be moving on from Johann Van Graan and Stephen Larkham but also Damian De Allende. We had asked about retaining De Allende earlier in the season but IRFU dispensation wasn’t forthcoming and De Allende’s enthusiasm for a new deal wasn’t overwhelming. If we’re moving on from the then head coach and the attack coach, it was theorised that any new coach that the IRFU/Munster would hire would need to move to a more expansive, more front-foot forward game plan and to make that work, you need a midfielder with Fekitoa’s qualities.
Sure, you could have spent that money on the much-vaunted mystery tighthead prop but IRFU dispensation around that was murky at best and the only prop that would be worth the money we’d pay who was also out of contract in July 2022 was the 32-year-old Vincent Koch, who had his deal with Wasps wrapped up by mid-November 2021 and announced the week before Van Graan announced he was leaving. Ahead of a World Cup year, there was no NIQ tighthead available (other than Koch) that wouldn’t have been an expensive punt on someone that wasn’t proven at the level we’d need them to be, and that was in a fictional scenario where the IRFU gave dispensation for the move, which was far from certain.
There was chat around signing Oliver Jager – the New Zealand-qualified Irish prop playing with Crusaders in New Zealand – but he’s the exact type of expensive, unproven punt that Munster couldn’t afford. There was a deal to be done with Jager at a price above what Munster were willing to pay but the deal wasn’t linked to Fekitoa’s signing and, ultimately, if Jager can’t get close to selection for the All Blacks when they’re rolling with the weakest tighthead rotation they’ve had in decades, you’d wonder if Jager was the answer to our questions after all.
At least with Fekitoa, Munster would have a key attacking component that could be a big rock of any new possession-focused game plan. You could pair Fekitoa with Chris Farrell – at least that was the plan initially – and build a new game with that strong midfield core at the centre of it.
Farrell, who we’d signed to a new two-year deal in January of last season, has been a CORE 1 starter for the last few years. There was worry around the place that Farrell would fall foul of the “over 28, on a high tier contract and just outside the test bubble” post-covid equation that puts normally banker renewals into doubt. It didn’t happen, despite strong interest from France – supposedly – and he was announced as having re-signed on January 5th. Malakai Fekitoa would be announced almost a month later. My own opinion on this is that Farrell might well have fallen into the cut pile with guys like John Ryan if it wasn’t for the impending departure of De Allende or if the business Munster happened on later in the season had been done earlier but that’s neither here nor there at this point. Farrell is a very experienced player, a really strong ball carrier, he’s settled in the area with his young family and he should be available to Munster year round if he’s fit.
When Munster signed Antoine Frisch in April, the Munster midfield began to look a little crowded, all of a sudden – certainly the Category A midfield.
We didn’t sign Fekitoa to be a rotation player, Farrell has been a CORE 1 starter for years and Frisch is, well, class. You’ll see that this year. Munster had tried to sign Frisch from Rouen before 2021/22 but covid’s impact on budgets meant he went to Bristol instead. When Bristol’s cap issues hit during the tail end of last season, it meant Frisch became more available than he had otherwise been and despite strong interest from France (Mike Prendergast had tried to get him for Racing 92 prior to making his move back to Munster himself) Frisch came to Munster with a view to playing for Ireland, who he qualifies for via his grandmother.
Frisch is one of those under-the-radar type of players and the timing of his contract announcement plays a part in that, I think. It’s almost like, if he was so good why wasn’t he announced in February, as opposed to April? It’s almost entirely down to the circumstances of his exit from Bristol, which owes more to admin errors on their side as much as anything else. When Frisch became available, Munster moved quickly because we had the money to spend and because Frisch is worth it, even if it seemed like our midfield business was “done” at that point.
I hypothesised a way that Munster could start all three players in this article and, while Munster have used a “three midfielder” build in the preseason games, that Inside Winger spot was used by Shane Daly. Antoine Frisch’s presence on the Emerging Ireland tour suggests he’s a player who Ireland sees as having test potential and, given he’s 26 while also being a relatively high profile acquisition into the country on a three-year deal, that would suggest they see him having that potential sooner rather than later.
Dan Goggin should provide ample cover in, potentially, all three slots in this system as a hitter at #12 or #13 but also with the potential to cover as a Power Winger in that Inside Winger* slot.
* If you want to get an idea of the various Winger Roles, you’re really better off reading this article where I go through them in detail.
Goggin has a fresh two-year deal in his back pocket after signing an extension last January and I think he’s a guy who can add real value this season, especially in a slightly flatter, less integrated system that doesn’t require as much playmaking.
Rory Scannell, out of contract this season, faces a tough renewal despite having a real uptick in performance over the last two seasons, in my opinion. He had a very solid 3.25 average star rating last season – a higher rating than De Allende – but played his fewest minutes since 2014/15. If you want an illustration that a 3-2-X favoured a ball handler in that #12 slot, that’s a good start on the complexity of it. That said, Rory’s minutes have been gradually dipping for the last few seasons anyway due to the signing of Damian De Allende in his position but 2021/22 was the lowest minutes played and appearances since the season before he broke through as an academy player in 2015/16.
2017/18 – 1835 minutes (27 games)
2018/19 – 1682 minutes (25 games)
2019/20 – 1277 minutes (21 games)
2020/21 – 1042 minutes (20 games)
2021/22 – 782 minutes (14 games)
That’s usually indicative of a player who’s going to be cycled out of the squad. John Ryan’s minutes outside of the World Cup in 2019 steadily declined season on season until he was not offered a deal in the last season of his final contract last year. Rory Scannell will be 29 by the turn of the year, isn’t an international and finds himself in a position where he’s the only senior player off contract with three more established options – that isn’t a good spot to go looking for a new deal but, as we’ve seen, the trials and tribulations of Contract Season can lead to many unknown roads.
In the academy, Fionn Gibbons is an absolute monster that, even in year one of the academy, has the physical qualities to get game time this season. He’s raw in a lot of areas, sure, but he’s got “it” in my opinion. What is “it”? Brutish physicality. A good coach knows that use players as they are and improve other areas to round them out. What point is there in playing André Esterhuizen – a player Gibbons really matches up with from a role POV, in my opinion – like he was Conrad Smith or vice versa, for example? Use Gibbons in the right role and he’s got the capability to be a foundational player for Munster in the years to come.
***
In the back three, there is a range of complicated decisions to make this season.
One of them would appear to be quite simple – Keith Earls looks like he’s in his final year of elite pro-rugby. Now, I did say that last season but, after signing a central contract extension up to the end of the 2023 World Cup in May of this year, this would appear to be The Man’s last season at Munster. We don’t know when the deal was signed – even if I did hear that Munster were willing to extend him on a provincial deal if he wanted to play on and the IRFU didn’t offer a central deal – but he’ll do what he did last year for both club and country; provide excellence in training, elite level positional play in the backfield and top-class finishing if required. We might be at the point where Earls probably isn’t an automatic starter but whenever he does start, you know exactly what you’re going to get.
Andrew Conway is in a really interesting spot this season. The very hefty contract he signed pre-Covid is expiring this season and it’s unlikely that the IRFU will be offering him a central contract given the options nationally so the question will be the following. It’s a two-parter so buckle in for a long sentence. How much of your provincial budget do you offer to a winger who’ll be 32 by the time he starts any new contract he signs with you when he’s the most expensive type of player there is in Irish rugby i.e a provincially contracted player that’s heavily involved in the test scene so you get them for 10-12 games a season.
That’s the equation Munster will be weighing up this season. Does Andrew Conway win you games in 2022? It’s a hard one to parse. He’s only scored three times for Munster in the last two seasons – compared to 16 tries in the two seasons before that – but we can’t separate that regression in scoring from the knocks and injuries he’s had over the last two seasons ranging from concussion to a troublesome knee issue he was dealing with last season.
The Andrew Conway we saw in May and June of 2022 as Munster’s season fizzled out wasn’t the real Andrew Conway. Munster’s new system would seem to suit Conway’s strengths because a 3-3-1 needs to have a complete outside winger to really make it sing, in my opinion, but he needs to hit the ground running and show his value. I don’t think it’s a question of him not getting a contract because he’s still very high up on the national outside winger depth chart but with James Lowe, Mack Hansen and Jordan Larmour pushing hard for green jerseys and Jacob Stockdale returning from long term injury, there are no certainties when it comes to that Ireland #14 jersey.
Munster will likely look for a two-year deal to take Conway to 34/35 on reduced terms from his current deal but it’ll be interesting to see what interest there is in Conway from within the Irish system and without, especially if he appears to be out of the test bubble when it comes to the November internationals.
Mike Haley falls into similar territory in that he’s a senior player heading into his prime years that isn’t in the Irish test bubble at the time of writing and who would be on a higher-tier contract. Haley is class, to put it frankly, but the one area of his game where he’s not elite – offensive playmaking – is probably the one thing that’s keeping him out of test consideration and as long as he’s outside that test bubble, he’s an expensive player for Munster to retain. Haley will be potentially English qualified again by the time any contract discussions will take place so that will add an interesting wrinkle to any sides looking to bring him back to England. I can see why they would. He’s an excellent defensive fullback, with great size, a long boot and top-drawer aerial skills. He’s a decent carrier too but his work on transition and offensively falls just short of the elite for me, but that shouldn’t stop a good few Gallagher Premiership teams from looking at him closely.
Any decision we make here will have finances, closely followed by system suitability, in mind.
Munster have Patrick Campbell waiting to break out in the academy after signing a 1+2 deal late in the season. These kinds of deals are given to players who we think are going to be very, very serious talents. Patrick Campbell is certainly that, as he showed for Young Munster, Munster and the Irish u20s last season. He’s a Slashing Fullback capable of destroying teams on the outside or stepping inside with top-class pace, finishing and transition IQ.
His two-year senior deal starting in July 2023 might make Munster skittish about offering Mike Haley any longer-term deal of any significant value, although cover through the World Cup might complicate that decision-making.
Liam Coombes signed a new two-year deal last season and offers midfield cover but I think he offers something very interesting as both an Inside and Outside Winger. His pace and kicking ability are his key attributes for me and, with the security of that two-year contract, he should feel comfortable pushing on this season and nailing down a role set.
Shane Daly is out of contract this season and finds himself in a weird spot in that he’s been in Andy Farrell’s Ireland camp, got capped, played well but then slowly drifted out of contention in the following two seasons. Did he lose confidence? It often happens when guys come out of Ireland camp a little bamboozled by the levels, different training types and filling different roles.
That question of “role” is a key issue for Shane Daly as he enters a really important season for him personally. He’s played 78% of his rugby as a winger for Munster but he got called into the Ireland camp after impressing at fullback at the end of 2019/20 before being played as a winger in the James Lowe role once he got into a test jersey but he’s been called up to the Emerging Ireland tour and been listed as a centre.
Ultimately, I think he’ll be best served being classified for us as an Inside Winger with a hybrid Layered Power Handler/Heavy Strike Runner classification to fit in at Munster and then for Ireland. If he can, he’ll get a new deal. If he can’t make it stick, I think Munster might look to move on.
Everything that’s true for Shane Daly is equally true for Calvin Nash, who has to hit the ground running this season, impress on the Emerging Ireland tour and, basically, make it plain to Munster that he needs to have Andrew Conway’s spot as the first choice Outside Winger. He has the pace, the defence is a question mark still, but if he can showcase some real attacking fireworks in a system that is being built to produce them, he’ll go far this season but it really is all on him now to deliver on his undoubted potential in a contract year.
In the academy, Conor Philips has a big year ahead of him, especially with a lot of potential coming up behind him at the u19 level. He needs URC minutes, to be frank, and when he gets them he needs to impress. That’s the tough part of being an academy guy for three years who’s spent a lot of time playing 7s – your face goes elsewhere while other guys take your reps in training and your face-to-face time with the guys who select you for your province. The good news for Philips is that he’s got the skills, the athleticism and the confidence to make a big impression, he just needs to get the chance and then take the chance. A one-year deal would make a tonne of sense for me at this point, especially if there’s flux elsewhere in the back three with senior players leaving or retiring.
Simon Zebo is arguably one of the most important players in the backline this season as he’s the only player who’s got experience in a Mike Prendergast system as both an Inside Winger and a playmaking fullback. We’re heading into the last two years of Zebo’s prime, in my opinion, which marks him down as a PRIORITY 2 replacement but with his try-scoring record as good as it ever was, Zebo’s usage should not diminish unless something radical changes.
Priority 1: Important player to be replaced by the end of the season.
Priority 2: Important player to be replaced within two seasons
Priority 3: Important player to be replaced within three seasons
Core 1: Important first-choice player with at least four seasons of peak performance remaining.
Squad 2: Squad player in peak age that likely has four+ seasons of high performance in a down-the-chart position.
Foundation Player: Young talent (20-24) expected to play for five + seasons and transition to Core 1.
Potential Foundation: Talent ID’d young player (18-23) that has the potential to ascend to regular first-team exposure as a Core 1 or Squad 2 type player.
Assess 1: A player that will need to be assessed for role suitability and depth chart position across the upcoming season with a view to their future usage or contract.
| Player Role | Age Jan 1 2023 | Grade | Contract Year? | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Malakai Fekitoa | HITTER 12/13 | 30 | CORE 1/PRIORITY 2 | NO |
| Antoine Frisch | STRIKE PLAYMAKER | 26 | CORE 1 | NO |
| Chris Farrell | HITTER 12/13 | 29 | CORE 1 | NO |
| Dan Goggin | HITTER 12/13 - POWER WINGER | 28 | SQUAD 2 | NO |
| Rory Scannell | SECOND FIVE | 29 | ASSESS 1 | YES |
| Fionn Gibbons (A) | HITTER 12/13 | 20 | POTENTIAL FOUNDATION | YES |
| Andrew Conway | OUTSIDE WINGER - PACE FINISHER/LOCKDOWN DEFENDER | 31 | CORE 1/ASSESS 1 | YES |
| Liam Coombes | OUTSIDE WINGER - PACE FINISHER | 25 | SQUAD 2 | NO |
| Shane Daly | INSIDE WINGER - HEAVY STRIKE RUNNER | 26 | ASSESS 1 | YES |
| Keith Earls | OUTSIDE WINGER - PACE FINISHER/LOCKDOWN DEFENDER | 35 | CORE 1/PRIORITY 1 | YES |
| Mike Haley | LOCKDOWN FULLBACK | 28 | CORE 1/ASSESS 1 | YES |
| Calvin Nash | OUTSIDE WINGER - PACE FINISHER | 25 | ASSESS 1 | YES |
| Simon Zebo | INSIDE WINGER - LAYERED POWER HANDLER, HEAVY STRIKE RUNNER | 32 | CORE 1/PRIORITY 2 | NO |
| Conor Philips (A) | OUTSIDE WINGER - PACE FINISHER | 23 | ASSESS 1 | YES |
| Patrick Campbell (A) | OUTSIDE WINGER - SLASHING FULLBACK | 20 | FOUNDATION | NO |
