It’s never dull at Munster Rugby.

It might be damaging to your psyche, emotional well-being and, sometimes, the most euphoricly intoxicating thing you’ll ever be a part of… and it’s never dull. Few months in the last few years have been as dramatic or as immediately impactful in the change they brought about mid-season as the last 30 days. On the 29th of October, Graham Rowntree departed Munster immediately via mutual consent. Last week, Munster announced that the forward coach Andi Kyriacou would join him in leaving the club mid-season. It’s the first time I can remember an Irish province parting ways with two senior coaches in this manner and the first time in a long time that I’ve seen that kind of sweeping change before the November test window. There are rumours that Munster have also parted ways with a senior member of the Athletic Performance department, but these remain unconfirmed.

As ever, that kind of sweeping change would not be done lightly and without good reason. I have been over some of these reasons in my article on Graham Rowntree’s departure which I published less than 30 days ago at the time of writing. Kyriacou’s departure is more of the same.

The official reason that was given for Kyriacou’s departure from the club was family reasons and that is true. Kyriacou has been at Munster since 2021 when he joined as an Elite Player Development officer with a special focus on forward play. He was promoted to Forward Coach as part of Graham Rowntree’s ticket when Rowntree was eventually hired after a long process in April 2022. In the years since, his family have been based in the UK and that will make life difficult for anyone, especially with the hours and workload that a professional rugby coach has to endure. I know I couldn’t be away from my family for a lot of the year in a different country for very long, especially in a high-pressure, public-facing role. So I get the strain that was involved there.

So while that is true and completely understandable, it’s also correct to say that Munster’s lineout and forward work was irretrievably broken under his stewardship and a change in that unit was inevitable.

At the time of writing, Munster’s lineout is ranked in the bottom five in all of Europe’s top three leagues with a completion rate of just 78.6%. Anything below 85% is considered sub-elite. Anything below 80% is generally disastrous.

Yet, when you look at the bottom five, you’ll find some unusual names. Teams you wouldn’t expect to see down there. The Bulls, who are currently sitting third in the URC, are below Munster. So are Bordeaux, and they are second in the TOP14. Why has it not affected them? Because they have overwhelming size, power and attacking firepower to compensate for a faulty lineout, and we do not. The Bulls, for example, are in the top 10 for the amount of lineout possession they steal from the opposition. Bordeaux are top five for scoring off kick returns, something that is readily available to them in the TOP14, and they are in the top ten Europe-wide for dominant carries.

Both the Bulls and Bordeaux rank incredibly highly for dominant carries and gainline success so their lack of lineout completion is not a total hindrance to them.

Munster does not have any of those metrics to compensate, bar having the second-best scrum in Europe from a completion perspective but when you see who the top three in that metric are – 1. Scarlets, 2. Munster, 3. Cardiff – the value of it as a metric is debatable. We are also in the top six in Europe when it comes to scoring off turnovers.

Essentially, our lineout problems would not be as much of an issue if we were getting over the gainline in attack, but we’re not. We’re in the bottom three in Europe for dominant carries and just outside the bottom ten for gainline success. So with that lack of punch in the carry from our forwards, we badly need a functioning lineout and, because we haven’t had that, we’ve looked genuinely awful at times so far this season.

The vast majority of Munster’s problems this season are related directly to the forward pack. Their collision work hasn’t been close to good enough and the lineout has been a game-losing disaster zone on both sides of the ball.

Of course, we can’t discount the injury problems Munster have had in the pack over the last 12 months. They would be enough to impact the quality of any unit, especially in one so vital to this game as the forwards. Even allowing for injuries, however, the quality of our lineout was poor and getting worse year after year and, this season, game after game.

Of the sources I spoke to on the playing side, a common theme emerged; there was no confidence in Andi Kyriacou’s ability to change the picture as the man leading the analysis and technical coaching of the lineout. Small things like poor lift details going unaddressed, the menu staying the same week after week, detail on the opposition’s lineout schemes seen as “lacking” and players feeling that they had to take things into their own hands mid-game were all problems I heard throughout the last year.

Rowntree’s feeling on this was that it would turn around given time, as it had done in the previous two seasons. Our lineout wasn’t elite last season but it finished around 83% after hovering in the 70s earlier in the year. That wasn’t elite but it wasn’t under 80%. Better than nothing. Even then, go back to last season’s run-in and you’ll find our lineout costing us crucial momentum in big moments of big games.

When that wasn’t addressed by the third week of the new season, there was no confidence in the HPC that Kyriacou was the man to turn it around. And it was worse it got, to the point that I believe our lineout has cost players the opportunity to stake a claim for wider inclusion in the test camp this November.

You might say, if the players know the lineout wasn’t being run at the right level, why don’t they do something about it? First of all, it’s not their job to do that incredibly complex job, even if they took on the offensive side of the throw only; they have enough to take on board during a match week.

Second, what was the alternative – coming in after training to drill the lineout themselves after hours?

That isn’t to say that the players are completely blameless either but when I heard Kyriacou subtly putting the heat on the players during a presser earlier in the season, I thought – man, this is your unit.

One of Kyriacou’s first press conferences in 2022/23 had him saying that his aim was for Munster’s pack to be one of the most feared in Europe. It’s fair to say that didn’t pan out.

Andi Kyriacou’s family situation coupled with a wild underperformance for a club of Munster’s stature and set-piece history combined to lead to the best outcome for everyone – an immediate departure rather than a long goodbye. Earlier this season – before Rowntree’s departure – I felt it was an inevitability that Munster would move on from Kyriacou regardless, given the lineout’s profound negative impact at the end of 2023/24 and the start of 2024/25. I didn’t expect that change to happen mid-season but I can’t say it’s the wrong call, despite the disruption that comes with it.

The man tasked with fixing Munster’s lineout in the short to medium term is Alex Codling, the current women’s team forward coach, formerly head coach of Newcastle Falcons, former forward coach with Oyonnax and multiple different consultancies and short-term stints with England, Harlequins, Ealing, Ulster and more during an 18-year coaching career.

Many people have focused on his year-long role as head coach of Newcastle Falcons as something of a negative. I don’t see it that way. He had the same lineout completion rate as Munster last season while on an infinitely smaller budget. He spoke about this in an emotional post-match interview after losing eight games on the bounce.

“When it comes to it, we don’t have the size, we don’t have the experience.” 

Despite this, his Newcastle Falcons lineout was a peer with teams like Munster, Racing 92, Toulon and Connacht, despite having a fraction of those clubs’ budgets and, what budget they did have being spent primarily on in the backline. Lineout is Codling’s main strength as a coach and that Newcastle Falcons job he managed is up there with as good as you’ll see, despite their results.

His work with the Irish Women’s lineout will show over time but the longer he spent with them last season, the better they got – especially in the games directly before and during WXV1.

As a short-term solution to the biggest issue at the club at the moment, Codling is the perfect guy to throw out what doesn’t work, get back to basics at a fundamental level and start building back up our defensive side of the throw as much as anything.

He has the players at his disposal, but time is ticking.