There’s plenty still to fight for this season, but the European campaign’s end is a natural reflection point for every club.
Munster are no different. In the last week or so, I’ve tried to find out as much as I can about the actual vibe in the group ahead of a big block of URC games, the off-season and the new season to follow. A few outlets have reported on supposed issues in the Munster camp in the last few months. Stuff like bad vibes, the implication that it’s a “bad place to be” right now, and the generic but catch-all “trouble in the camp” trope has been wheeled around.
But is it true?
Well, I’ve gone to the bother of speaking to guys in the camp about this and… it’s bullshit. The general vibe in camp on the training pitch, gym and elsewhere is pretty good.
In this instance, I think the initial report was a little clumsy in that it conflated objectively annoying things for the organisation – an insane injury list that keeps shifting to new positions, guys like Antoine Frisch getting pulled into France’s orbit in the same way that happened with Healy and Kleyn, with the same headaches, as well as the contract issues with Murray and O’Mahony just to name a few – but these things don’t make an impact day-to-day on the ground. It’s a professional game, everyone knows it, and that means guys coming and going on relatively short cycles. Of course that stuff – Frisch, RG leaving for Leinster, the Murray/O’Mahony thing as well as refreshing the squad – is a headache for Graham Rowntree and Philip Quinn, who have to deal with the ins and outs of it at a practical level, but it’s far from something that consumes the entire squad and staff outside of the usual “did you hear what’s happening there” stuff, which happens in every pro-rugby environment.
Even then, there is no such thing as a 100% happy-clappy rugby camp. In every single professional rugby club – without exception – you’ll find a few coaches and/or players who are pissed off with one thing or another. Feeling shortchanged on the contract you’re on? Pissed off. You’ve been told you’re not getting a new contract so you’re looking for a new club and all the hassle that comes with it? Pissed off. You’re not getting the minutes you were promised in the off-season, despite talking to the coach a few times? Pissed off. Lost an argument on team direction? Pissed off.
In the process of finding this out, I got a good feel for where they feel the squad is in April 2024 ahead of a possible URC playoff run.
There are three Munster teams right now.
- The squad we have available right now.
- The squad that we have contracted but is currently unavailable
- The squad we would like to have this time next year.
The feeling I got was that the squad we have available grafted as hard as they could in the circumstances since the start of the season – especially in Europe – but that they didn’t have the power or top-end quality to do themselves justice. The team we have contracted is probably better than the last 16, especially if we had them available for the pool stages – not an unreasonable wish – but a series of bizarre, no-pattern injuries put paid to that.
Every team has injuries to deal with, without question, but for Munster to be without Jean Kleyn, Roman Salanoa, RG Snyman, Oli Jager, Niall Scannell, Diarmuid Barron, Fineen Wycherley, Edwin Edogbo, Dave Kilcoyne, Joey Carbery and Mike Haley for extended, season-hinging periods throughout the campaign has been incredibly difficult to deal with.
In the second row, in particular, we’ve been badly snakebit by injury to the point where running set-piece drills in training during December and January became increasingly difficult. The killer long-term injuries to Snyman and Kleyn immediately increased the game load on guys like Beirne, Ahern, Wycherley and Edogbo, with the latter two picking up long-term injuries themselves during the season.
Questions were asked about the intensity of training (as well as other S&C issues) and there are a few changes expected during the summer to help build robustness next season without compromising what has also worked in training.
For now, it’s a case of getting as much quality back on the pitch as possible with Jean Kleyn, Diarmuid Barron and Oli Jager all expected to be back in action by the end of May – right in time for a potential playoff run. Edogbo and Salanoa are expected to return during the off-season with a bit of luck.
The main focus this season behind the scenes is how the squad might look next season.
There are more than a few irons in the fire at this stage – at least two or three new signings by all accounts – but there is uncertainty in several spots.
It’s no secret that guys like Carbery, Knox and Snyman are leaving, as well as the rumoured departures of Simon Zebo, Peter O’Mahony, Dave Kilcoyne and Stephen Archer. That is a lot of experience potentially heading out the door which, on the face of it, is a negative.
When you drill into it, though, it’s a little less cut and dried.
Carbery was offered a new deal but on significantly reduced terms than his current deal, broadly in line with what a #2 flyhalf would be paid, which is quite a cut from the #2 test flyhalf status he would have had when he signed his previous deal. With Jack Crowley as the #1 guy in Munster and Ireland, it doesn’t make sense for Munster to overpay for Carbery and it doesn’t make sense for the guy who moved to Munster to be the #1 for province and country, in 2018 to accept a reversion to the situation he found himself in at Leinster six years down the line. His moving on to France is best for everyone. Munster added the experience of Billy Burns on a budget-friendly one-year deal to compete with Crowley next season but, most likely, he’ll offer solid backup minutes throughout the season as Crowley gets more and more managed by the test side.
Snyman’s move to Leinster was a little more contentious, given the circumstances around how Jean Kleyn became NIQ again. Once Munster decided to keep Kleyn while he was on a longer injury timer than Snyman, the potential was there for a form of buyer’s regret once Snyman came back. You saw that in various places once Snyman started throwing go-go-gadget offloads with his telescopic arms in his first few games back during the test window.
Had RG played 12/13 games a season for us since 2020, losing him to Leinster would have been much more of a burn. The reality is that he has only played 432 minutes for us in four seasons. In the cold light of day, and with all the offloads in the world, there was no decision to be made if it was between RG and Kleyn. Jean Kleyn was the only decision to make. It would be irresponsible to throw another 400k, at least, at Snyman given his injury record here where the games he’s missed have been far more impactful than the ones he’s played in.
Snyman played 48 minutes of Champions Cup rugby in his time here which is a gob-smackingly low return considering we signed him to be a level raiser for us in that competition. At a certain point, you have to step away from the table when it comes to gambling on RG’s availability, as understandable as that urge to gamble might be. At his best, he’s a top-three lock in the world. When he’s unavailable, as he has been here for the vast majority of every season he’s been at the club, he’s the world’s most expensive tracksuit stand.
Then you’re looking at the squad veterans who seem to be coming to the end of the road at the club after stellar careers in red and green. I’ve covered O’Mahony’s situation before on these pages and it seems that a resolution is no closer to being found.
The ball seems to be in O’Mahony’s court as things stand. He’ll be 35 this year but there’s no doubting his impact as a leader and as a 50-minute starter is still at a good level. Andy Farrell values his leadership at test level and that’s a huge factor nationally, where his wages are a non-factor.
From a Munster perspective – where he has been offered a PONI deal that’s partly funded directly by the IRFU – we are keen to evolve the squad and are willing to sacrifice some on-field leadership to do that. That might mean O’Mahony’s role at Munster next season is as a bench option for big games.
Munster have been looking to build a squad for the next three years that is mentally and physically ready to take that next step as a group – in short, regularly contest URC finals and make the final four of Europe to push to win it in two years or so. O’Mahony is certainly willing mentally but is the body where it needs to be for that push? That’s the question.
I can see him relishing that question and I wouldn’t be surprised to see him take up that PONI deal and finish his Munster and Ireland career as a closer and a veteran option for Munster and Ireland. That makes the most sense from a succession plan perspective and probably reflects our options in the back-row changing a little from Ahern as an offensive half-lock to possibly involving Brian Gleeson as the likely alternate for O’Mahony in that Munster #6 role. I can see Ahern being used more as strike running #4 next season and beyond, and that opens up a need for O’Mahony.
I think Munster are looking at another player in the back three, a prop and potentially Tom Farrell from Connacht as a year-long cover for Antoine Frisch, who I expect to leave the club this summer.
That situation hasn’t gotten unpleasant – yet – but I feel an impasse coming where the three French clubs chasing him feel that he could engineer a release for free to avoid them paying a transfer fee because they know that him staying at Munster next season while he’s a French international is untenable for the IRFU. Frisch also knows that hanging on for a year won’t do him any good either if he wants to add to his minutes for France, as it’s hard to see Galthié making him the only French regular playing outside France.
Without getting into the weeds on that, Munster will need to add cover for him and Tom Farrell – or Tom Daly – offer readily available, low-cost minutes there with a similar role set. Gene O’Leary Kareem, who will go into the Munster academy this summer, is an exciting talent but expecting him to cover any significant professional minutes next season is unrealistic at this point.
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One decision that has been looming over the squad charts for a while is Munster’s desperate need to add size and power in the props.
Oli Jager offers an immediate upgrade on our tighthead side with John Ryan providing veteran cover there next year for certain. Roman Salanoa’s recovery from what turned out to be a serious knee injury is far from certain at this stage – we don’t know what kind of player we’re going to get back there as he enters the last year of his current contract – and it’s quite likely that Stephen Archer departs this off-season, along with Keynan Knox.
Dave Kilcoyne appears to be on the way out of the club too and, to be fair, he and Archer leaving at 35 and 36 respectively is the natural way of things at this level.
To me, that means we need three things to happen;
- One of the younger looseheads to make a big step up next season to challenge Wycherley
- Munster could do with signing a power profile loosehead
- We need one of McSweeney and Foxe to make a step up to URC tier minutes next season.
If the Munster coaching set-up thinks that McSweeney and Foxe aren’t ready for that, they might look at another short-term deal for Archer if the body can keep going.
On the loosehead side, we’re relatively happy with Loughman and Wycherley. The feeling is that if – a big if – Wycherley can make a step up physically, that there’s a good player there but that step up is far from a guarantee. Josh Wycherley needs another 8-10kg on his frame to be a top-level option for Munster and then Ireland but it remains to be seen if that’s possible. Loughman is a very solid starting option but Munster are aware that adding a powerful carrier at loosehead is a key part of adding to our power game next season. This player will have to be Irish-qualified, too, which means we’re looking for a Hansen-like pickup that can be an immediate option for us. Donnelly, along with Hadden, should be ready for URC minutes next season so we’ll see how they progress. Both are good scrummagers but both also need a lot of size to become more selectable.
This is where the biggest question marks remain for the group heading into next season.
Next week, I’ll look at Munster’s young guns and how Munster believes they can power a massive level change for the club over the next two to three years.
