If you’ll indulge me for a minute.

An hour before we were going to go live for Access Munster — extended highlights here — I was just… looking around. That’s what I do. I get into the stadium as early as the media gate allows, and I just sit there. I was standing in this instance because we didn’t have seats where we were outside the MRSC Bar. So I stood. For two hours. I see the players and coaches walk in diagonally across the pitch from the corner of the West Stand. Some look nervous. Some look like they’re walking through Dunnes.

I look at the stewards buzzing around the place.

As I was going from the East Stand to the West Stand — I went to the wrong gate when I arrived — one of the girls at the blue gate had to walk me up to the gantry. That still wasn’t the right place, but on the way there, I heard one group of stewards almost having a team talk before the 15k crowd showed up.

“Whatever happens, you don’t leave this gate. If you need to go to the toilet, call me and we’ll cover you, but do not leave this gate.” 

You know what I thought? I thought, this is important to them. It means something. A club of this dizzying scale isn’t just the players and coaches. It’s the stewards. It’s the people handing out passes at the gate. It’s the people organising the ticket sales. It’s the comms department, it’s the marketing department. It’s the people in the office keeping everything between the ditches. It’s the people handing out the pints, or the coffees, or the curry. None of it happens without them.

None of it happens without the fans, either.

They drive, they walk, they take trains, planes and automobiles to be here, or in Cork, or wherever that red flag goes because they fucking love it. I saw them all starting to file in. Drinking pints in the MRSC bar. Meeting their friends on the terraces. It’s about love, ultimately.

I took this photo to send to my fiancé. Maybe my little girl would like it (she wouldn’t, no dogs or horsies in it), but I took it for myself, too.

It’s nothing special as photographs go. But at this moment, I said to myself that thousands of people were going to be tuning into Access Munster, so if the stewards can pitch up, I’m going to fucking pitch up too.

This club deserves it, because it’s an honour and a privilege to be where I am. I’d spoken to maybe ten or eleven people who stopped me walking to the stadium or in the stadium to say hi, and tell me how much they enjoy Three Red Kings. I could say, “How is this my life?” but I’ll tell you this: I know how quickly everything can change. There’s no time for pats on the back.

I’m not employed by a big media organisation. I’m not a journalist. I didn’t get a leg up from a playing career that anyone would care about.

Maybe this is the top of the wheel for me. Maybe I’m nowhere close to it — I hope so — but if it all ends, I’m going to make sure I honour this privilege with 100% effort. If that’s me shouting on a microphone, I’ll do it. If it helped you enjoy the live stream, I’d do it 100 times over.

You deserve it.

I looked up at that curve of the East Stand and I thought, This is a Special Club. A Proper Club. And we’re lucky to be associated with it, no matter how we came to it. By birth, by proximity, by choice. I’m a small, temporary cog in a big machine. One day I’ll be gone, we’ll be gone, but Munster Rugby will still be there.

This is our thing. And it’s as special as we make it.

***

Munster are the only club side in history to beat a representative team from all four of the major Southern Hemisphere nations.

Australia, South Africa, New Zealand and now Argentina.

I often see “When’s the play coming out?” used as a put-down when it comes to records like this, but I ask them this: make one play about any other club in this sport and see how long it runs for, if it runs at all, and then we’ll talk. Munster playing touring sides is part of the fabric of this place. Deal with it.

So this was never going to be just a friendly. I would posit that it’s impossible to play any Argentinian representative side and have it be cordial, let alone friendly. Expect hostility. Felipe Contepomi, the Argentinian head coach, was in the stadium for this one, so every Argentinian in this XV knew that performing well was more than just this game.

They played like it.

The opening 20 minutes were close in combat. Argentina played like you’d expect a scratch side to play — they used a lot of pick and goes, hits off #9 and then wider releases to the backline, with almost all of their pack in a narrow formation around every ruck. They backed their physicality and size advantage to grind Munster down, along with their very heavy scrummage. It was as classically Argentinian a challenge as you might expect.

But Munster resisted. Every tight carry was met with a tight defensive shot. This sequence is a really good example. Argentina had penalty access to the 22 — a good few of those early on — and once they broke off the maul, it was all about whether or not Munster could keep up that two-man tackle pressure.

You’ll see those choke tackle attempts that stood so much in Croke Park a few weeks ago in there too, but the fundamental question was whether or not we’d be up for the physical challenge. We were.

Argentina might have expected something of a size advantage, given how they selected, certainly in the front five, but it never really translated, outside of an early rash of penalties that they kicked to the corner but couldn’t convert.

We just defended really solidly, athletically and forced turnovers with that tackle pressure.

Argentina’s first try came from the first real opportunity we gave them to attack our transition defence when a kick through from Mike Haley after another spoiled lineout gave their really athletic fullback, Wade, a chance to make a play with a bit of space to work with.

But we went right back up the field and forced a turnover off the restart, and went to work.

Anyone who was at the open training session in Castleisland RFC this summer will have recognised this hybrid pod shape.

Mike Haley in the centre of a three pod with two forwards on either side, off the handler.

Post transition or goal line-drop goal, there will be more space after the second pass from the point the ball was retained.

Haley — or whatever outside back is in that spot — is going to be quicker and more elusive in that extra few metres of space, and that opens up the linebreak for Coombes on the outside.

From there, it’s about executing as you flow around the corner, and we did that really well.

There’s nothing flashy here; just the right pass, finding the right line and a good carry.

When done well after a good linebreak, you almost always score, and that was certainly the case here.

It’s simple, but it works.

***

We spent a lot of this game trying to exploit the short side of the field, something that has been a constant in the opening five games of the URC campaign.

We were in the bottom five for blindside attacks in the URC last season, and while those numbers are still updating for this season, I think short-side attacks are something we’re trying to build into our overall attacking picture.

It makes sense.

If our pack are generally playing narrower and without two distinct edge forwards, then that allows you to be closer to a short-side loop like this. You can see Coombes and O’Donoghue flying around the back of the ruck and telling Kilgallen to reset behind them.

When all of our scrumhalves are now smaller, nippier runners, that will almost always produce a window on the edge where you can offload to a linebreak and then a possible try conversion.

You can see Coombes do the same thing in the second clip. Mini-loop around the ruck on the 15m line, create a short-side overload and offload for a killshot, not just phase continuity.

We’ll look at that opportunity as one we really should have converted into a try.

O’Connor and Kilgallen get their wires crossed after the break — Kilgallen wanted an inside weave, O’Connor had set up a short ball inside the 5m tram to go up the touchline — but it shows an attacking evolution.

The third option is just excellent execution on transition. Argentina stacked the openside. Butler, O’Connor, and O’Donoghue saw the short side overload and used that offloading game to kill, not continue, and good support running ended up in a crucial try.

We’re offloading less often in general, but when we do offload, it’s almost always in those short-side tramlines.

Keep an eye on that going forward.

***

Munster didn’t treat this game as a friendly last week. This wasn’t a shot at nothing, or a free pass for some party rugby. This was very much seen as a continuation of the excellent start to the URC season, and it was put to the players selected — some of whom were making their first start of the season, or first senior appearance full stop — to keep that momentum going.

They responded as well as you could have possibly wanted.

With toughness, aggression, and accuracy when it was needed.

Long may it last.

Players	Rating
1. Josh Wycherley	★★★★
2. Lee Barron	★★★★
3. Ronan Foxe	★★★★
4. Conor Ryan	★★★★★
5. Evan O'Connell	★★★★
6. Jack O'Donoghue	★★★★
7. Ruadhan Quinn	★★★★
8. Gavin Coombes	★★★★
9. Paddy Patterson	★★★★
10. Tony Butler	★★★★★
11. Shay McCarthy	★★★★
12. Sean O'Brien	★★★
13. Fionn Gibbons	★★★
14. Diarmuid Kilgallen	★★★
15. Mike Haley	★★★
16. Max Clein	★★★
17. Mark Donnelly	★★★
18. Kieran Ryan	★★★
19. Fineen Wycherley	★★★
20. Luke Murphy	★★★★
21. Jake O'Riordan	★★★
22. JJ Hanrahan	★★★
23. Ben O'Connor	★★★★