[su_dropcap style=”flat” size=”4″]I[/su_dropcap]t would be a mistake to assume that there is a binary system in Irish rugby that posits that, if Leinster aren’t the top side in the country, that it is automatically going to be Munster. That certainly isn’t true, as Connacht and Ulster are pushing for that same primacy with their own aims but this is a Munster tinted site, after all, so my focus will be on what Munster need to do to regain the dominance that we had from 2000 to April 2009.

The last article looked at the sliding door moment of that 2009 semi-final and its aftermath in the next two seasons. I don’t think it’s fair to characterise that semi-final defeat as an immediate cut off point in the way that it sometimes gets framed but you can understand the narrative. Munster were the reigning European champions at that point and never returned to the summit of the club game while Leinster did it four more times in the coming years. In truth, there were lots of micro-moments that tilted the balance of power away from Munster, even in the aftermath of 2009.

Ultimately, I think it’s fair to say that after the Lions tour of 2009, Munster had an ageing, but still effective, first team that could compete at the higher levels of European rugby but not progress to another final. I covered the age profile and retirements in the previous article but I didn’t cover recruitment and development – how Leinster did it and how Munster did it.

How Leinster Did It From 2008/09 to 2011/2012

You only have to spend a few seconds underneath an article on the 42 to see some chirpy boy squeaking on about how the other provinces have a load of NIQ talent and “discarded” Leinster players. Yet, when you look at Leinster from 2008 to 2012, they had no qualms whatsoever with signing whoever they needed to if it meant competing at a high level.

Their 2008/2009 Heineken Cup-winning squad featured;

• 7 Foreign-Born Signings
• 3 Players signed directly from Munster
• 2 Leinster born players signed from other provinces who had played zero pro games for Leinster before that point – Jackman and McCormack.
• 19 Leinster developed players.

The team that started against Munster in that semi-final had five NIQ players in the starting lineup, two former Munster players on the bench, two Leinster born players that were professionally developed in other provinces staring and on the bench, with the rest being entirely Leinster produced players as it was defined at the time.

The winning squad of 2008/2009 lost four foreign-born players in the summer – Elsom, Contempomi, Jowitt and Whittaker – and Felix Jones to Munster. Losing Elsom, in particular, was a big blow given his impact the previous season and it took a bit of time for Leinster to fill that gap. Contepomi’s loss was a romantic one but heavily cushioned by the rise of Johnny Sexton towards the end of the season.

But, to compensate for those losses, Leinster signed six players; the Australian Shaun Berne, two Munster developed players (Mike Ross & Eoin Reddan), the Irish qualified Rhys Ruddock from the Ospreys and Nathan Hines, an Australian born Scottish international and Richardt Struass, a South African who would later qualify for Ireland and represent the country excellently.

Leinster had a decent 2009/10 but exited the Heineken Cup and Magner’s League at the semi-final stage.

Once again, Leinster had no qualms about signing guys like Ross and Reddan when they became available – the equivalent of Munster signing Tadhg Beirne from the Scarlets – because they were the best players for the job at the time.

When an opportunity came to sign Nathan Hines to replace the ageing Malcolm O’Kelly, they did that too without any worries over their amount of NIQ players in their pack at that point. If you look at Leinster’s front five in particular at the time, you could regularly see most of the slots being taken up by signings from abroad and former Munster players but then, as now, it wasn’t a problem.

Munster were still producing the bulk of the Irish forwards at test level – and had done for almost a decade – so there was space for Leinster to sign players from elsewhere to fill the spaces. Stan Wright, CJ Van Der Linde, Richardt Strauss and Nathan Hines were all very decent signings for Leinster and brought them through a period where they didn’t have a load of home-grown quality ready to roll.

Cheika left with his coaching team at the end of the 2009/10 season and Leinster replaced him with Joe Schmidt.

This was probably the smartest hire by an Irish side in the professional era.

Schmidt was a bit of an unknown quantity at that point. He had worked alongside Vern Cotter at a Clermont and this job would be his first as a professional head coach at the age of 44.

Schmidt’s first season in charge saw Leinster lose Malcolm O’Kelly, Bernard Jackman, and Girvan Dempsey to retirement and Chris Keane/CJ Van Der Linde to other clubs. To compensate, Leinster signed the Argentinian Mario Galarza (a bit of a bust), the South African Heinke Van Der Merwe, and the Irish qualified pair of Isaac Boss and Ed O’Donoghue from Ulster. Leinster also promoted Andrew Conway, Rhys Ruddock, Ian Madigan, Dominic Ryan, Jack McGrath and Brendan Macken from the academy that year.

Schmidt’s tenure started out rough enough – three losses in Leinster’s first four games to Glasgow, Treviso and Edinburgh – but a 13-9 win over Munster in the Aviva seemed to be a turning point for Leinster under Schmidt and they went on to win the Heineken Cup that season against Northampton after a wild second-half comeback.

All the way through Schmidt’s – and then O’Connor and Cullen/Lancaster, latterly – if Leinster had to make a signing from another province, be it Sean Cronin, Robbie Henshaw, Isaac Boss or Mike McCarthy, they made those moves without any qualms. If it meant signing guys like Bent, Roux, Kirchner, Tuquiri, Te’o, Gopperth, Triggs, Nacewa (for the second time), Fardy, Lowe, or Tomane

So any side looking to knock Leinster off their throne cannot play by the rules that the Leinster of today talk about because the Leinster of years gone by certainly didn’t. When an opportunity came to improve their squad from abroad or from someone valued or undervalued by a rival province, they made their moves and were better for it.

Leinster would go onto retain the Heineken Cup in 2011/12 by beating a disappointing Ulster side in the final after a titanic win over Clermont in France at the semi-final stage. That, at a European level at least, proved to be a bit of a high water for this particular version of Leinster, and they entered a brief period of restructuring.

***

Leinster’s biggest strength in their ascent, in my opinion, has been the addition of top class, multi-cap international quality homegrown players alongside a clever, pragmatic recruitment strategy.

Jamie Heaslip, Sean O’Brien, Luke Fitzgerald, Cian Healy, Rob Kearney and Johnny Sexton all broke through around the same time – 2006 to 2010 – to augment the existing top-class quality of Hickie, O’Driscoll, D’Arcy, Horgan, Dempsey and O’Kelly that were in situ. When you throw in the talented roster of players who might not ever have been top-end internationals or Lions tier players such as Devin Toner, Leo Cullen, Fergus McFadden, Shane Jennings, Kevin McLaughlin and others, you have a deep, high-quality squad that, from 2008 on, was being continuously fed from the bottom by the improving production of the Leinster academy system.

But those six players – Heaslip, O’Brien, Fitzgerald, Healy, Kearney and Sexton – were the core drivers of the Leinster development post-2009. It’s one thing to win one Heineken Cup, but you don’t win four in 11 years without real succession planning focused around a strong core of key players. This is what Munster did, after all. Once it became clear that Hayes, Horan, O’Connell, O’Callaghan, Wallace, Foley, Quinlan, Stringer and O’Gara were the real deal in and around 2000/2001/2002, Munster stuck with that core and added in quality around them. Flannery and Leamy came in later and added real value, but that strong core gives you a framework to build around. Guys like Mick O’Driscoll, Barry Murphy, Ian Dowling, Mike Mullins, Rob Henderson, Anthony Horgan, Dominic Crotty and others played a valuable role and it was all augmented with smart, pragmatic recruitment to fill gaps until you could fill those gaps – Jim Williams, John Langford, Christian Cullen, Shaun Payne, Trevor Halstead, Lifiemi Mafi, Rua Tipoki, Freddy Pucciarello, Doug Howlett etc, etc.

Leinster followed a similar roadmap because, frankly, it is the roadmap to success.

Those six young players would be the core component of Leinster’s ascent to where they are today and Leinster built around them. The likes of Rocky Elsom and Contepomi played important parts at the start, sure, but without the likes of Heaslip, O’Brien, Kearney and Sexton, in particular, who knows what and where Leinster would be today? That’s before we mention the great Brian O’Driscoll and Gordon D’Arcy, both of whom stayed remarkably productive at test and provincial level right up until their respective retirements in 2014 and 2015.

Any Irish province that wants to knock Leinster off their throne and keep them knocked off is going to have to do the following;

1. Have a core of established internationals in the latter half of their careers with a 2/3 season lifespan.
2. Identify a young core of talented home-produced players in key positions that can, with a bit of luck, be the spine of your team for the next 5/6 seasons. The sooner these get exposed to test level, the faster they will develop. 
3. Sign Irish qualified players to fill gaps in the squad not covered by the first two points.
4. Sign NIQ players – as good as you can afford – to bridge problem positions for 2/3 seasons or until you can replace them with a high potential Irish qualified player that is already in your extended system when you find them.
5. Continue to feed the squad with talented individuals and weed out lower-tier squad players whenever possible.

With that in mind, let’s look at Munster’s recruitment post-2009.

How Munster Did It From 2009 to 2012

If we look at the first criteria on our list (Have a core of established internationals in the latter half of their careers with a 2/3 season lifespan), Munster were incredibly well placed in the aftermath of 2009. We had a number of top-end, extremely experienced internationals with anywhere from two to five years left at the very highest level, some really good squad players in or around the peak of their careers and an academy with talented young players.

Before we get to the main squad, we need to have a look at the academy and sub-academy as it stood in 2008/2009 to get an idea of the chain of succession.

At that stage – and today, for the most part – the vast majority of players in the academy system would be anywhere from 2 to 4 years away from getting to the status of being Potential Foundation Players or Foundation Players.

Every player in your academy should be there on the basis that they will be a professional player that will improve your senior squad by the time they leave the academy on either full or developmental contracts.

By the age of 22/23, you should have a fairly good idea of who’s going to make it as a good squad player or a potential international but certain special talents will mark out their Foundational talent earlier. Keith Earls was one of those players in 2007 and became a first-choice player in that 2008/2009, to the point that he was selected as a bolter for the Lions by the end of the season. As ever though, even the highest potential academy players can be derailed by injury, personal issues, both or just plain old not living up to their potential for the myriad reasons that prevent players from becoming who they look like they might be.

In general, you wouldn’t look to promote an academy player to regularly fill a starting position in your category 1 squad unless, once again, you have a very special player in the mould of an Earls, Larmour, Ryan or Porter.

If we look at the 2008-2009 prime matchday squad from a Priority Replacement POV, you can see where we needed to start bedding in replacements looking purely at age profiles and the time we expect to get from them without a catastrophic injury relative to their position.

Priority 1: Replace within one season
Priority 2: Replace within two seasons
Priority 3: Replace within three seasons
Core 1: Important player in peak age that likely has four seasons of peak performance remaining.
Squad 2: High squad player in peak age that likely has four seasons of peak performance remaining.
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.
NIQ: Non-Irish qualified player who, bar exceptional cases, will not be staying long term.
NCR: No Clear Replacement in Senior Squad
NRN: No Replacement Needed (for a Foundation Player)

With that in mind, here’s my assessment of the 2008/2009 squad based on who could have realistically been involved in the 2009 semi-final.

All of my projections are based on what I could reasonably have known in May 2009 because I feel this is the fairest way to assess decisions that were made at that time.  

Munster Squad 2008/2009

Player	Position	Age in 2009	Grade	Potential Immediate Replacement	Potential Future Replacement
Marcus Horan	LHP	31	PRIORITY 2	Daragh Hurley	Dave Ryan (A)
Jerry Flannery	H	30	CORE 1	Denis Fogarty	Ger Slattery (SA)
John Hayes	THP	35	PRIORITY 1	Tony Buckley	Tim Ryan/Stephen Archer (A)
Paul O'Connell	L	29	CORE 1	Donnacha Ryan	Dave Foley (SA)
Donncha O'Callaghan	L	30	PRIORITY 3	Donnacha Ryan	Billy Holland
Alan Quinlan	F/L	34	PRIORITY 1	Denis Leamy	Peter O'Mahony (A)
David Wallace	F/8	32	PRIORITY 2	Niall Ronan	Tommy O'Donnell (A)
Denis Leamy	8/F	27	CORE 1	Nick Williams	Keiran Essex (A)/Dave Sherry (A)
Tomás O'Leary	SH	26	CORE 1	Duncan Williams	Conor Murray (A)
Ronan O'Gara	FH	32	PRIORITY 2	NCR	Jeremy Manning/Scott Deasy (A)
Iain Dowling	W	26	CORE 1	NCR	Diarmuid McCarthy (A)
Lifiemi Mafi	M	26	NIQ	NCR	Murray Kinsella (A)
Keith Earls	W/M	21	FOUNDATION 1	Tom Gleeson
Doug Howlett	W/FB	30	CORE 1	Keith Earls	Diarmuid McCarthy (A)
Paul Warwick	FH/FB	28	NIQ	Denis Hurley
Denis Fogarty	H	25	SQUAD 2	NCR
Tony Buckley	THP	29	SQUAD 2	Tim Ryan
Mick O'Driscoll	L	31	PRIORITY 1	Billy Holland
Niall Ronan	F	27	SQUAD 2	Tommy O'Donnell
Peter Stringer	SH	31	PRIORITY 1	Duncan Williams
Barry Murphy	M/W	27	SQUAD 1	NCR
Denis Hurley	FB/W	25	SQUAD 1	NCR
James Coughlan	8/F	29	SQUAD 1	Nick Williams
Rua Tipoki	M	34	NIQ	NCR
Donnacha Ryan	L/F	25	FOUNDATION 1	NRN
Nick Williams	#8	24	FOUNDATION 1	NRN

There are a few areas that immediately stand out on this list as needing immediate action – tighthead & loosehead prop, both flank positions, midfield, and flyhalf and I’ll get to those positions individually later.

The second row looks OK in 2009 given that locks can, typically, keep going for longer once they reach 30 without too many injuries. O’Connell & O’Callaghan would have at least three productive seasons left in the tank – remember, we’re estimating from what we would have expected in 2009, not what we know now – while Mick O’Driscoll was an excellent squad player that could switch between starting and support roles quite easily for another season handily enough. Donnacha Ryan was the prime Foundation Player in the second row and, in theory, would have looked to ascend to first choice in the next season to compete with O’Callaghan. At just 25 years of age, you could easily see another eight seasons before Ryan would eventually need to be replaced, which is the perfect amount of time for a Foundation Player in the second row. Billy Holland, aged 23 in 2009, is a Potential Foundation player at blindside flank and second-row but needs a bit more exposure.

Our hooker situation looks decent in 2008/09. Jerry Flannery is Ireland’s test hooker and, at 30, has another three productive seasons in the can before he, in theory, will need to be replaced. Frankie Sheahan is due to retire this season so another senior body will probably be needed in the position for next season, as well as some long term development through the youth structures. Denis Fogarty provides good squad cover but, at 25, there’s a bit of concern over Fogarty’s ability to step up to that next level – test calibre – but for now, things look OK in the position.

Ideally, we’d have whoever we expect to replace Flannery long-term – Fogarty or AN Other – hitting Category 2 selection by the middle of Flannery’s second season after 2009.

Let’s have a look at some of the problem positions.

Blindside Flank

Alan Quinlan was playing some of his best rugby this season even as he was heading into his mid-30s. He was selected to tour with the Lions, after all, but any player that’s 35 years of age is a high-priority to be replaced. Thankfully, the chains of succession look pretty good here because of how things are looking at #8.

#8 looks really good in 2009. Anthony Foley retired at the end of 2007/08 but Denis Leamy, by now a regular Irish international, had already nailed down the starting #8 spot with Munster well before Foley hung up his boots. At 27 years of age, Leamy is a CORE 1 player for Munster and, crucially, he can easily play #6 so slowly moving Quinlan out of the first team as he heads towards his contract end and playing Leamy there instead makes a tonne of sense. James Coughlan is a solid SQUAD 1 player at this stage of his career (29) but this plan hinges on how Nick Williams, signed earlier in the season, grows into the #8 position.

What’s not to like about this guy? A former Junior All Black with a great heritage coming out of the Blues and North Harbour. Physically, this guy had it all – 6’3″, 20 stone and really athletic for his size. This guy was Billy Vunipola before Billy Vunipila. Williams was a massive ball-carrying #8 that could score tries and commit defenders. The potential was obvious as a lead ball carrier that could dominate games, punch holes and be a key player for the next five or six seasons.

But even in his first season, there were concerns over his conditioning and discipline. If those issues could be ironed out Munster, and perhaps even Ireland, would have a serious player on their hands. Leamy and Williams had the ability (both proven and in potential) to be key parts of the Munster back row for another four or five seasons.

Openside Flank

David Wallace is 32 going on 33 years of age in May 2009 and he’s the best openside flanker we have in the squad by some distance. Yet, not even the most hopeful coach could look at that age profile and expect to get anything near top-class production from Wallace outside of the next two seasons, tops. Niall Ronan, signed from Leinster in 2007/08, is in the squad at this point and, at times, has shown top-level ability but the consistency of his performances are an issue at 27 years of age. One week he looks like a world-beater, the next he looks like an average pro. That will need to change if we’re to commit all in on Ronan as our next starting openside and, at 27, we really need to see this soon.

Ronan is a different type of openside flanker than Wallace but, if the Leamy/Williams axis works out in the other two slots, Munster could easily carry a lighter, more mobile openside instead of Wallace’s lead ball carrying, heavy-hitting profile.

Tommy O’Donnell has shown a lot of promise in the academy at this stage – coming up from sub-academy to full academy and beyond – and looks like someone who could easily see first-team reps sooner rather than later if Ronan doesn’t work out.

The real question is an unpleasant but necessary one – are we replacing Wallace with a better player or a younger player? If we were to make that decision now, in 2009, it would plainly be making the call on a younger player who wasn’t really in Wallace’s league with all due respect to Niall Ronan. David Wallace was an experienced, Grand Slam-winning international at this point and would go onto be a starting test Lion in South Africa that summer. Even in May 2009, could we be sure that Ronan would even come close to that level*? I don’t think so. It’s a problem position but, if succession works out elsewhere, we can continue with Wallace for another season at the very least until we’re sure about Ronan, or O’Donnell. It’s a position where we may need to recruit in.

(Future note: This problem is one that would plague us in multiple positions for the next three seasons)

Tighthead Prop

At 35 years of age, John Hayes has been a cornerstone for Munster and Ireland for the guts of 10 years at this point. He’s still producing at a high level but how long more can we reasonably expect this to continue in May 2009? Tony Buckley, at 29, is Hayes nominal replacement and has a big upside in ball carrying and his general physicality but there are big concerns over his scrummaging along with some niggling injury and illness issues, especially with the changes coming to matchday squads the following season.

Up until this point, teams had only two front-row replacements – a hooker and a prop who would have to be able to cover both sides of the scrum. Buckley suited this role perfectly because he was an adequate scrummager on both sides – he was a latecomer to the position – but dominant in phase play. As the rules changed, adequate scrummagers who could cover both sides would find themselves having to specialise because they would be going up against fresh tighthead specialists. This is a potential problem.

Just look at him though – 6’5″ and 21 stone with real athleticism when he’s fit. At 29 he’s got another three seasons at least in his position but there are enough question marks about his scrummaging to make it far from a sure succession but it’ll do for now, especially as he can specifically focus on the tighthead side of the scrum.

The younger tightheads in the squad and academy are, just that, young players and there’s a big gap between the senior options and anyone who might feasibly replace them at this point. It would seem that a signing from outside is inevitable here but our scope will be limited because both Buckley and Hayes are still heavily involved with Ireland.

Loosehead Prop

Marcus Horan is still a viable option for us at 31 years of age but with the substitution laws coming in that allow three front-row replacements, a definitive second senior specialist loosehead will be needed as a priority. So, while Horan probably has another two or three seasons in him, we’ll definitively need another senior player to cover this position right now as well as identifying a high-talent younger potential replacement. Daragh Hurley, 23 in 2009, has shown potential to fit this bill but he’s had a lot of injuries and is a question mark as a result.

Time is against us in this position with the new sub laws but we still have time to develop a specialist long-term replacement with a bit of luck on the injury front.

Flyhalf

How do you replace a guy like O’Gara? He’s a Mount Rushmore type player for Munster who, at 32, has a few seasons left at the very highest level with his playstyle but we, as an organistion, have to get his potential replacement in situ for the eventual handover.

Scrumhalf looks sorted in 2009. Stringer is an experienced vet, Duncan Williams at 23 is a high potential young player (with Conor Murray floating around in the academy) and Tomás O’Leary has just been selected for the Lions at 26 years of age.

Flyhalf, though, is a different story. O’Gara is still the dominant player in this position for Munster and Ireland but even now, there are real concerns over who will replace him long term. The idea of who starts for Munster or Ireland at 10 in March 2009 if O’Gara gets injured is vaguely terrifying. Sexton has only just appeared for Leinster and, despite his excellent semi-final and final performance, is still something of a question mark at this level. At Munster, there are two nominal replacements; Paul Warwick (by far the most accomplished), Jeremy Manning and Scott Deasy in the academy.

Warwick, often played as a fullback just to get his skillset on the field, is a really strong replacement for O’Gara and did so really well but he’s non-Irish qualified because of his Australian Sevens career so could never be looked as a long term option for Munster despite being at a prime age (28) in 2009.

Manning had shown some potential but, as with Wallace, were we ready to hang our hat on him as the guy to replace O’Gara in 2009? Whoever was going to fill that role once we moved on from O’Gara was going to be in for a rough ride regardless but they have to show that they have the potential to at least come close to what O’Gara gave us.

The thing is, O’Gara’s skill set wasn’t really all that dependent on what age normally takes away from a player so, at 32, he could still be highly productive for us for another two or three seasons at least, which would give us time to develop a replacement from within, sign an IQ replacement or, if the budget and IRFU allowed at the tail end of his career, a NIQ #10 that would bridge the gap for us and give us more time to develop a replacement inside the next five seasons.

Midfield

This is a clear priority position from a game plan and a succession perspective. The Heineken Cup semi-final in 2009 showed a clear need for a big, physical midfield presence alongside O’Gara that we hadn’t replaced properly since Trevor Halstead. Mafi had been hugely effective for Munster this season (and could well end up being a replacement for the departing Rua Tipoki at outside centre) but, like Paul Warwick, caps for New Zealand Sevens side meant he could never qualify for Ireland so his time would always be somewhat limited in the province. Barry Murphy had shown real potential as an outside centre but had struggled to return to the form he showed in early 2005/2006 after a broken leg and a series of other injuries.

Keith Earls (21) had shown real potential as a #13 this season but questions remained about his size in the position and whether or not his undoubted skillset would be of better use in the back three.

With Tipoki retiring and injury question marks over Murphy, this looks like a high priority position to sign someone in almost immediately to start for the first team with a real focus on developing long term talent there through the academy or by signing a young IQ replacement.

***

With this in mind, we can look at who Munster signed over the course of the next two seasons;

2009/10

Julian Brugnaut – LHP
Damien Varley – H
Jean De Villiers – M
Felix Jones – FB
*Wian Du Preez – LHP

The season following 2009 was littered with a series of injuries to CORE 1 Munster players. Denis Leamy only played 10 times for Munster that season after suffering a season-ending injury against Perpignan in December, Paul O’Connell only played 8 times because of hip injuries and the infected groin injury that would keep him out for nearly 10 months, Jerry Flannery only played 6 games because of injury and Marcus Horan’s injury in late ’09 was enough to warrant the signing of Wian Du Preez on a three-month contract. Julian Brugnaut had been signed as a LHP during the off-season but found himself bouncing between starting on the loosehead side, benching as a loosehead but also covering tighthead prop. He would leave at the end of the season after one year and go onto have a massive career at Racing 92.

Tomás O’Leary suffered a broken ankle in April of 2009 and returned to Munster action in September of that year but looked like the injury had taken something from him and his form dipped to the point that he went from starting Grand Slam #9 in spring 2009 to missing out on the World Cup in September 2011. We had signed Toby Morland as cover at halfback over the summer on a six-month deal to cover O’Leary’s absence with Duncan Williams still in the infancy of his career and the position being adequately covered by an ageing but still effective Peter Stringer.

These disruptions to the core Munster players not only affected on-field performance, but it also hurt our longer-term succession plans as the serious injuries to Leamy and Flannery, along with guys like Nick Williams not working out, affected previously held planning strategies beyond the end of the season.

Felix Jones – signed from Leinster in the 2009 off-season – suffered a serious neck injury in his sixth game of the season against Connacht.

The big signing of that summer, Jean De Villiers, arrived on a one year contract that had the option of another two to be decided at the end of the first year. This suited Jean De Villiers but I’m not sure if it gave Munster the positional stability that we needed at the time. De Villiers had an odd first season, which wasn’t helped by a hand injury and a period of time where he was played at #13, outside Lifiemi Mafi, rather than at #12, where he was probably best suited but he came into his stride towards the end of the season. Ultimately, with the 2011 World Cup looming, he made a decision to return to South Africa, meaning Munster would be back on the market for a midfielder for the second year running as no internal players had presented themselves in the year since 2009.

The 2011 World Cup was looming large on the horizon at this point and it would play a part in Munster’s contractual decision making going forward.

Nick Williams would leave at the end of the season, along with De Villiers, Manning and Brugnaut.

2010/11

Johne Murphy – W/FB
Sam Tuitopu – M
Wian Du Preez – LHP
Peter Borlaise – THP

This season would see Munster fail to qualify for the Heineken Cup for the first time in 12 years after a decisive loss to the Ospreys around Christmas, but we would go onto win the Magner’s League that season by beating Leinster in Thomond Park.

We were still plagued with injuries to our CORE 1 players.

Ian Dowling suffered an injury that would ultimately end his career, Barry Murphy was in the same boat, Jerry Flannery missed almost the entire season through injury and Paul O’Connell would only start 7 games over the entire season. Denis Leamy would play a productive part over the course of the season with Alan Quinlan remaining incredibly productive at 6 in what would be his final season. Donnacha Ryan was playing a lot of rugby at 6 and in the second row that season and ably supported by James Coughlan who played a tonne of minutes at 6/8 during the Magner’s League season.

With O’Connell’s future up in the air, Munster and the IRFU offered O’Callaghan a three-year deal in 2010 to take him up to the 2013/14 season. Offering a deal of this length to a then 32-year second row looks like a development mistake in hindsight, but you can understand the thinking at the time. This was right in the middle of O’Connell’s battle with Osteitis Pubis and there was a real concern that he might be forced to retire because of the injury. If O’Callaghan left in the summer of 2011 – to a world of top suitors – and O’Connell was forced to retire, Munster would be left with Donnacha Ryan as the primary lock with no lead-in time.

In that context, signing O’Callaghan – who was still in excellent nick – to a long term deal gave certainty and experience to the position if the worst were to happen with O’Connell.

At this stage, the tighthead prop position was also a serious concern.

The signing of Peter Borlaise as a project player was clearly an attempt to fix up the THP position with a mid-term option, especially with the impending retirement of John Hayes and Tony Buckley’s on-going struggles in the scrum. These struggles were such that the IRFU pulled their contract offer to Buckley in the aftermath of his really poor scrummaging performance in that loss to the Ospreys in late 2010. Buckley would take up a three year deal with Sale after the World Cup, setting in motion a series of events that would lead Munster to sign BJ Botha from Ulster after the World Cup with Stephen Archer and later John Ryan filling in behind him.

Wian Du Preez had impressed so much during his three-month contract the season prior that Munster offered him a two-year contract for this season. Initially, himself and Horan battled over the position before Horan suffered a long term injury and a heart murmur that would keep him out for four months.

Munster had replaced Jean De Villiers with Sam Tuitopou, a hard carrying former All Black midfielder but he, like De Villiers, would leave after one season for the Sale Sharks. Johne Murphy had been signed from Leicester Tigers during the preseason and he would play at #12, #13, #14 and #15 at different points during the season, which was needed given our injury rate.

This was Paul Warwick’s last season as Munster couldn’t compete with the offers he was getting from abroad. Munster could have paid him enough to stay but were limited by more pressing needs elsewhere and the fact that Warwick, like Mafi, could never represent Ireland so a bullet would have to be bitten sooner rather than later on both men. Warwick was the first but Mafi would follow in a season or two.

Upfront, Damien Varley’s performance levels at hooker since re-signing from Wasps were compensating heavily for Flannery’s injury absence during this time but Denis Fogarty struggled with injury during 2010/11 and only managed 180 minutes over the entire season.

This season featured the addition of a number of young Munster players from the academy that Munster had really high hopes for as future Foundation Level Players – Conor Murray, Peter O’Mahony, Ian Nagle, Tommy O’Donnell, Dave Foley, Mike Sherry and Paddy Butler were all close to the senior squad at this point.

Murray’s performances at the tail end of 2010/11 had him starting the Magners League final ahead of O’Leary while Nagle and O’Mahony started against the Wallabies in November 2010. Ian Nagle, man of the match in that particular game, generated unbelievable hype – and rightly so. A 21-year-old athletic, 6’6″, 18 stone second row that could carry the ball, pass and counter-jump that just bossed a Wallaby pack? Imagine.

There was also real belief in Foley and O’Mahony but it was Paddy Butler who had the most amount of hype before the season started.

He went from an academy deal to a development deal to a senior contract inside one year.

February 2011 saw Munster make a big statement on who they thought their foundational players for the next few years would be when they announced a massive influx of young players onto senior contracts for the first time.

Conor Murray (scrumhalf), Mike Sherry (hooker), Paddy Butler (#8), Scott Deasy (10/FB), Dave Foley (L), Darragh Hurley (LHP), Felix Jones (FB), Ian Nagle (L), Peter O’Mahony (F) and Tommy O’Donnell (F) were all signed at the same time. Nagle, in particular, was heavily chased by other European clubs and reflected his quick ascent to a senior deal. Munster also agreed to contract the 23-year-old Ian Keatley from Connacht at the same time to cover the impending loss of Warwick and bring in a high potential Irish qualified player to eventually transition away from O’Gara.

That would lead us into 2011/2012, where the first great Munster transition would begin.