When Roman Salanoa decided that he wanted to move from Dublin, Limerick was a natural destination for him. The Liddy family – Wes Liddy the RTE producer in particular – played a big role in Roman’s move to Ireland in the first place along with Eddie O’Sullivan so there was a natural link there for the man they call The Big Uce.
Salanoa first joined Old Belvedere – where O’Sullivan was coaching – when he made the move over to Ireland and eventually made it into the Leinster academy proper for a few years before Munster won the race to sign him on fully pro terms. Leinster lose players all the time but rarely people they want to keep. Salanoa was one of them. And why wouldn’t he be? He’s everything Leinster typically try to build around. Salanoa is 125 kg and was already hitting Furlong and Healy’s gym numbers in his first year in the academy. Sure, there were work-ons, as there would be for any relatively late convert to the sport but you’d live with those because Salanoa was such an exciting physical prospect.
When he made the move south, it wasn’t so much about his initial impact – it was about keeping him ticking over and developing until this season. Now, to be fully fair, his first two seasons at Munster were so bedevilled by injuries that you could have been forgiven for being surprised when we announced that he’d signed a three-year deal last season. Three years?! For a guy who played 170 minutes in two seasons?
But we knew what we had in Roman.
When I made my way to the pre-season friendly against Gloucester this September, I managed to get a few words in with one of the Munster coaching team and I did my usual probing as to, basically, who’s looking like an absolute beast in the preseason? I asked about Edogbo, and he told me he was flying it – we didn’t know just how far he’d come though, to be fair – but then he said to look out for Roman Salanoa who came back in preseason absolutely bossing it. Scrummaging, mauling, phase play – he’d pulled it all together and was looking outstanding.
A few weeks later he was in the Emerging Ireland tour and looked by far the most advanced rookie on the field. He came back to Munster and was a key part in beating South Africa A in Páirc Uí Chaoimh. Then on Saturday against Connacht, he showcased more of his ability as an all-court player even with decisions going against him at the scrum.
His screen passing and explosivity on-ball are really, really good and that’s something of a “must-have” for all props in a framework like Munster are trying to build. His scrummaging is generally quite good but it can be hard to translate gym numbers to that area of the game consistently, especially when you only have 20 pro games under your belt since 2019.
One area where freakish power does come in handy and easily transfers over, though, is the maul. And boy is that happening for Salanoa.
I think one of the issues we’ve had in the lineout so far this season has been a desire to keep our back pin – Salanoa/Knox – out of our lifting schemes so that they can supercharge our maul as Power Hinges. What is a Power Hinge? It’s a tight forward that you can move your maul around. Players like this are pretty rare – so rare, in fact, that you’d scheme specifically to keep them out of lifting duties to ensure you get the most out of their power.
Salanoa’s power, heft and low centre of gravity allow him to cleave straight through the in-field defence, especially in the aftermath of a counter-launch, where the opposition are naturally compressed to the touch-line side. He binds on the back lifter, the rest of the maul drive binds onto him and then Munster can drive around the opposition maul to the point where the majority of their defenders are automatically shunted to the opposite side of Salanoa’s hinge.
He is a beast and if Munster can consistently get the lineout completion rate north of 85% this season, Salanoa’s mauling will become an even more effective part of our tight, close-in work.
