Munster’s issues in the front row are long documented and somewhat relative. No one could describe Munster’s front row as being generally poor over the last few years because they haven’t been, not by any means. What they have shown relatively consistently is that they are limited when it comes to the very highest level, which is different from being poor in general. You don’t see an issue when Munster play, for example, Benetton or even Glasgow, but you do see an issue when you play the likes of Leinster, Toulouse or Prime Saracens. That’s when Munster’s front row as a unit has, on more than one occasion, looked a little bit dated.

But this isn’t news to anyone in the HPC.

Over the last few seasons, Munster have repeatedly tried to recruit around the front row to double down on their strengths while mitigating against their weaknesses. It isn’t as simple as “just go and sign a hooker” because, for the last few years, the IRFU have held a very close reign on NIQ signings in the front row. That’s why Munster have, for the last few seasons, tried to build around the back five as a unit

A recent exception was Michael Ala’alatoa as a makeweight to allow Leinster to take on the positional heavy lifting for The Porter Switch and Connacht getting dispensation to sign loosehead/sometimes tighthead if you’re stuck Tietie Tuimauga last season when Denis Buckley was out with a serious knee injury.

David Nucifora wants as many Irish-qualified options playing in the primary front-row positions as possible to ensure we don’t have another Michael Bent Incident ahead of the 2023 World Cup. And I don’t just mean the Michael Bent Incident from October 2012 either because the one from July 2022 showed how two injuries can burn you down to the ground to the point that you need to roll a retired 36-year-old project player off his farm to fill a jersey on short notice.

With the World Cup looming, it doesn’t really make a tonne of sense to have any of the 8 Category 1 slots for each front row position across the provinces tied up by someone who won’t be a factor for Ireland at the World Cup. That could well change after the World Cup – the Steven Kitshoff to Ulster talk is an example of that potential relaxation – but for now, it’s all about providing options behind the established incumbents.

At test level, I think the charts look something like this;

Irish Test Tighthead Chart

1. Tadhg Furlong (Leinster)
2. Finlay Bealham (Connacht)
3. Tom O’Toole (Ulster)
4. Open Spot 

I’ve already covered Munster’s tighthead situation because it’s got enough detail to stand all on its own. Munster don’t have an option anywhere near this chart at the moment but the onus is on Rowntree and his team to bring through at least one player to challenge for that fourth spot. I think there’s a lot of fluidity in this chart, however, and a strong early to mid-season from Knox could move him (a) onto the chart in the first place and (b) into active contention for a bench spot if he can back up games week to week and perform in the three interpros coming up in the first block of URC games. I think it’s more than plausible, however, that if neither Knox or Salanoa make a step up this season that Munster will go looking for an NIQ tighthead in the post-World Cup market.

The situation on the other side of the scrum is far more complex.

Irish Test Loosehead Chart

1. Andrew Porter (Leinster)
2. Cian Healy (Leinster)
3. Open Spot
4. Open Spot 

For me, Munster do not have any player that is a solid option to feature in the front row for Ireland barring two or three injuries. The biggest opportunity would seem to be in that loosehead depth chart. Dave Kilcoyne was involved for Ireland pre-neck injury and Jeremy Loughman made the tour of New Zealand but didn’t get capped. He made two appearances for Ireland XV against the Mãori All Blacks and did fairly well but it was notable that Cian Healy’s ankle injury sustained in the first Mâori All Blacks game did not increase Loughman’s chances of moving up to the test side, even after his return from the brain injury he suffered in that same game.

Andrew Porter played 80 minutes in the first test, with Cian Healy named on the bench post ankle injury as an unused replacement. It was Weekend At Bernie’s stuff. For the rest of the tour, it was Porter/Healy and I think those are the only two real certainties right now and even Healy’s place behind Porter is far from certain. Cian Healy will be 35 this October (only a year younger than the supposedly washed-up Michael Bent) so, for me, the route to a test bench spot is wide open if you can make a run.

That could be Jeremy Loughman. He’s got the advantage of already being in camp and has a good all-around skill set. He’s a decent scrummager up to a certain level, he’s a decent carrier up to a certain level and a very skilled handler of the ball at any level you want to take him to.

His skill set isn’t the issue – it’s his physicality against elite opposition. It’s the one thing holding him back from racking up the 10/15 caps he could easily earn in the next 24 months post-Healy, in my opinion. Loughman’s passing and handling are superb but these are nice extras. They are pepper sauce. Your basics – elite scrummaging, a heavy carrying game at short or midrange, impact close range defence, lineout IQ and mauling power on both sides of the shove – are your sirloin steak. Without the basics, it’s like ordering a big steak and getting a small pot of pepper sauce all on its own instead.

I have no doubt that Loughman can dominate against lower and mid-level physical opposition. He did that against the Mãori All Blacks to an extent but they looked like a mid-level Champions Cup side on multiple watch backs, with more than a few Pepper Sauce merchants of their own.

When the levels have gone up for Munster in the physicality stakes over the last two seasons, Jeremy Loughman has rarely gone up with them. I thought he really struggled against Leinster on both occasions and in particular against Toulouse in that big quarter-final – although he was far from the only man in that boat.

For me, Loughman is a solid squad option but with the potential to add a bit more heft to his game in the next 12 months.

The big Munster hope for this season is, for me anyway, the continued development of Josh Wycherley into a CORE 1 starter and regular test match option.

At 23 and in a contract year, it’s vital for both the club and Wycherley himself that he can fix the few work-ons in his game as of the end of last season. Skill set-wise, attitude-wise and base technical detail-wise, it’s all there for Josh Wycherley. He’s a good handler – a really good passer – a good heavy carry option and a solid hitter on the defensive side of the ball. He’s also an aggressive and willing scrummager but he needs size. He had some really good moments against Toulouse in that quarter-final in the Aviva but he was consistently overwhelmed in the scrum against a physically bigger opponent.

Josh Wycherley is currently listed around 108KG which would be fairly light for a modern loosehead even allowing for looseheads being generally lighter than tightheads and weight/height stats on most rugby websites being a no-good House of Lies for the most part.

The ol’ eye test has Wycherley around 110KG for me at the moment and I think, ultimately, he’ll need to get up to around 115KG+ to be properly effective as he settles into his pro frame. That 5/7KG makes all the difference when it comes to finding your effective playing weight in the modern game and I think it’ll do Wycherley the world of good. You can’t just throw on 5KG worth of blubber though – he’s not me on holidays – because putting on 5-7KG worth of functional weight at this level takes time. Wycherley came into the setup a little small but everything I’ve seen from him over the last 24 months suggests there’s a serious player in there and the end of the season certainly hinted that the new head coach Rowntree, as part of the coaching group at the time, thought the same.

He’s the kind of young player that you get on contract with early and, ideally, you package with his brother, Fineen. I think Munster see the value and potential in Josh Wycherley as a part of a Category 1 loosehead duo going forward and will match that perceived value with a new two-year deal or perhaps even a three-year deal.

In 2020, both Wycherley brothers were heavily courted by Harlequins before signing on for another two-year deal in early 2021. That interest bumped their contract value considerably relative to the tier they might have been on without such a pursuit. You would expect that a player like Josh Wycherley would be in play again this time but the situation has changed in the Gallagher Premiership. In 2020, the salary cap was £6.4 million per team but it’s only £5 million as of today in an attempt to stabilise the Premiership clubs’ finances post-pandemic.

That does not mean that we’re safe from inflationary contract negotiations, however, or targeted interest from the Gallagher Premiership – one club in particular.

Johann Van Graan will be making enquiries to multiple off-contract Munster players this season as he attempts to rebuild Bath. We need to accept this now, because it would be beyond unusual if he wasn’t making a list of all the guys he knows are off-contract in July 2023 and seeing which of them could improve Bath. Josh and, in particular, Fineen Wycherley could well be targets, as could Dave Kilcoyne.

For all the reasons that John Ryan wasn’t offered a new deal last season, I think the same will apply to Dave Kilcoyne when it comes down to brass tacks this season. Kilcoyne is in the last year of a three-season deal signed pre-pandemic and would be on the higher tier of contract at the club – just below central contract level if I was to guess.

Does Kilcoyne’s projected usage next season, when any contract he signs becomes active – and keep in mind that he’ll be 34 in December –  suggest a continuance of anything close to his current contract value? Since signing his current deal in March 2020, Kilcoyne has played 13 times for Munster in the URC and Champions Cup across two seasons. That is partially explained by nine Irish caps, multiple Irish camp call-ups, but a regular slew of injuries too. His most recent injury to his neck kept him out of contention from the end of the 2022 Six Nations and there isn’t any information on a roadmap for his return at the time of writing.

The problem for Kilcoyne is that, in a contract year, you don’t want to be starting the season rehabbing a long-term neck injury – kryptonite for props – especially when you’re in that prime target area of being on a high-tier deal, heading into your mid-thirties and down the chart for the test side. He looks in great nick at the moment but how close is he to a return? With neck injuries, especially for a prop, you just never know.

You could make an argument that a fit Dave Kilcoyne is third in the depth chart nationally behind Porter and Healy – and you’d be right, based on the previous Six Nations – but how long will that hold? I would argue that, as of now, there are no set plans for that tentative slot behind Healy in the loosehead depth chart. Kilcoyne’s neck injury will have moved him out of the frame for the time being so Andy Farrell, armed with that series win in New Zealand, will have some licence to try out younger options ahead of the World Cup next year.

All that suggests to me that Kilcoyne could be at risk of being offered a one-year deal as prospective World Cup cover or not being renewed at all. Remember, Munster are in an environment where we will have to cut our budget again this upcoming season by €500k or more. The wage books will need to be balanced and that is forcing a fairly hard reset towards younger options. Going younger doesn’t always mean cheaper, either, but when the player you’re paying at the top of a depth chart is between 20-26, you get more leeway with the IRFU who are, ultimately, bankrolling a significant proportion of the provincial budget. If Kilcoyne can get back by the end of preseason, he’ll be in a spot where he can play his way onto a deal but I’d be shocked if he got offered anything more than a one-year deal, despite his quality, which isn’t in question.

Is there a case to be made for the following contract cycle for 2023/24?

Move Wycherley to a higher tier deal for 2023/24, use Loughman as the “experienced” part of that duo for the second year of his recently signed two-year deal and use this upcoming season as a tryout for Mark Donnelly to take up a senior deal during the season and an intro year for Kieran Ryan? Use the savings you get from Kilcoyne’s contract to take a chunk out of the amount you have to cut anyway and show the IRFU that you’re investing in new academy talent early.

Donnelly really interests me this season. He’s got a frame that looks like it can pack on the KG and he’s come back to preseason looking in good nick.

If Mark Donnelly makes the most of his early season opportunities, he could well make a case to Munster and the IRFU that Kilcoyne is no longer as necessary as he might seem on paper. I would also expect Keiran Ryan to get ample opportunities to make some lower-level URC games and a lot of A-level and club rugby.

Liam O’Connor will add depth and training numbers for the following season but I would suggest that a further extension to the one-year deal he signed last season is unlikely and that he’ll be playing AIL mostly, like the season just gone. O’Connor is a good player but the years he lost due to the catastrophic knee injury he suffered in 2017 took a lot out of his top-end potential. I get the feeling he’ll get an opportunity at a run of games at some point this season and, as we know, anything can happen in this game.

Priority 1: Important player to be replaced by the end of the season. 
Priority 2: Important player to be replaced within two seasons
Priority 3: Important player to be replaced within three seasons
Core 1: Important first-choice player that likely has at least four seasons of peak performance remaining.
Squad 2: Squad player in peak age that likely has four+ seasons of high performance in a down-the-chart position.
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.
Assess 1: A player that will need to be assessed for role suitability and depth chart position across the upcoming season with a view to their future usage or contract.

	Player Position	Age Jan 1 2023	Grade	Contract Year?
Dave Kilcoyne	LHP	34	PRIORITY 1	YES
Josh Wycherley	LHP	23	FOUNDATION	YES
Jeremy Loughman	LHP	27	SQUAD 2	NO
Liam O'Connor	LHP	27	ASSESS 1	YES
Mark Donnelly (A)	LHP	21	POTENTIAL FOUNDATION	YES
Kieran Ryan (A)	LHP	21	ASSESS 1	YES

***

Niall Scannell is the ultimate throwback hooker. Shoot him back in time to 2010 and he’s THE guy, given Flannery’s injuries piling up. Still, even without them, everything Scannell does really well were incredibly highly valued and more valuable, full stop, back in the late 2010s. He’s an excellent thrower, a solid scrummager, a good tight defender and a decent offensive breakdown guy. What he is not, in my opinion, is an effective primary ball carrier; certainly when it comes to the game’s elite levels.

Scannell’s usage last season seemed to highlight what he’s not good at more often than not, and often through sheer necessity. It probably won’t shock you to learn that Niall Scannell had the highest amount of carries out of all our front-row players last season with 106 carries total across the season and the second highest of our tight five as a whole. Jean Kleyn was first with 128 carries, just to set a baseline. Scannell had two more carries than Fineen Wycherley, who played almost 600 minutes more than Scannell across the season according to the stats on the official Munster site.

If your perception of Niall Scannell is less than glowing, I think it comes from looking at him through the prism of that – his carrying or, rather, his over usage as a ball carrier depending on the game. He is often the primary ball carrier in our front five.

A lot of that comes down to other issues that have been systemic in Munster’s front five for a number of years. Without Dave Kilcoyne, our standard front five build does not have many natural heavy ball carriers. Jean Kleyn has become a heavy ball carrier but I wouldn’t say he’s a natural, even if he has certainly added to that part of his game this past season. Fineen Wycherley has been building a very rounded skill-set as a dedicated lock but isn’t a regular ball carrier for Munster, certainly on last season’s evidence. Josh Wycherley is building that part of his game, as is Keynan Knox, but guys like Archer, Ryan and even Loughman would not be regular, elite heavy ball carrying options. That means a lot of the heavy ball carrying focus off #9, off the maul feint and on the second or third phase off the scrum/lineout has fallen on the hooker in Munster’s system, as it often does.

In short, last year we were playing Niall Scannell like he was Dan Sheehan – who we also tried to sign last October – and not getting the same results. To get the best out of Niall Scannell I feel you either need to stack your pack build full of other heavy carriers – one in the front row, one in the second row and two solid options in the back row – to allow him to play a role more suited to his athletic profile.

For me, he is not a naturally explosive front-row athlete so when he’s put in positions where he needs to be explosive, he can often fall flat, like this example from the first half against Leinster in the RDS where he gets stopped by a one arm scragger by Josh Murphy off the side of the maul.

You’ll also probably remember a number of close-range tap-and-go sequences that rarely if ever, made it past the gain line. In an ideal environment, Niall Scannell is the guy securing that first ruck or joining onto the back of the maul to allow a back row to slide out to the “sting” position at the back of a long or medium-range maul.

Munster have tried to up the power in the front five as a whole by signing Jenkins and, of course, RG Snyman to take over some of the heavy carrying and change up our ball carrying rotation but they were never fit at the same time. Worse still, we were never able to play a full heavy second row of – 4. Kleyn, 5. Snyman, 19. Jenkins – at any point of the season to see if they could rebalance our pack build. When the build is off, or sub-optimal, the hooker is often the one who ends up taking the strain and that could easily be said of Niall Scannell but the need for your hooker to be a dominant ball carrier isn’t changing anytime soon. If you are a big lineout team, and Munster are, you need to have an explosive threat off the back of the maul or on the loop off a swivel-out pass. Munster, in particular, like to load up the hooker as the second phase option – to the point that the other regular starter last season – Diarmuid Barron – is the third biggest carrier in our pack across the season by volume so it would seem that there is a direct role conflict between what Munster have needed from that position, and what Niall Scannell is best at.

The question for Munster is, in a contract year for Scannell, is if we intend to continue using the hooker in this manner and if Scannell’s game can progress to be a better role fit.

Niall Scannell, in a contract year after signing his previous deal during the pandemic, is one of those players I’ve written about previously in that he’s 30, a senior player on a high enough tier deal and fourth, at best, on the national depth chart when everyone’s fit. It took two injuries – one season-ender for Kelleher and a knock to Rob Herring – to fly Scannell out to New Zealand for what would ultimately be uncapped midweek games against the Māori All Blacks.

Irish Test Hooker Chart

1. Dan Sheehan (Leinster)
2. Ronán Kelleher (Leinster)
3. Rob Herring (Ulster)
4. Dave Heffernan (Connacht)
5. Niall Scannell (Munster)

With that in mind, what do you offer Niall Scannell this season knowing that, of all the front row positions, hooker is the one most likely to get clearance to sign an NIQ player after the World Cup, given the options elsewhere in the provinces?

Munster currently only have two Non-Irish Qualified players on the books – Snyman and Fekitoa – compared to the three at Ulster/Leinster and four at Connacht. We tried to sign Dan Sheehan for a reason last October and not just because he’s class – because he fits the role set we need for the position down to a tee. That is a big, explosive ball-carrying Power Hooker that you can load up for 10+ carries in 60 minutes all over the field.

If you offer the same two-year deal to Scannell that he’s coming off, that limits the scope you have to go elsewhere. I still think there’s a role for Scannell as a heavy closer – a knock-down thrower and super solid scrummager is a really good option to see out a game, in my opinion, but what is the value of that in the tightened contract environment we find ourselves in? How much can you afford to spend on a guy who is mostly off-role for the position? I wouldn’t be shocked at a one-year deal for Scannell to bridge the World Cup year but, at the same time, I wouldn’t be shocked if he was cut either given the contract squeeze.

Diarmuid Barron, starting off a new two-year deal this summer, is someone who’s mostly in the same boat as Scannell from a role-set perspective but with the advantage of time on his side. Barron had a deeply mixed 2021/22, for me. He was superb against the Scarlets in October but his performance levels fluctuated wildly throughout the season. The one constant for me as I watched back the season in the build-up to this series was that Barron needs some size on him in the worst way. He’s still listed as the lightest hooker in the country and, yes, House of Lies and all that but for me, he could do with another 5KG on him straight away. The basics of the position are Barron’s key strengths most of the time. He’s a good thrower most of the time. He’s a good scrummager. He’s a good breakdown guy – really good, actually – but not the biggest or most impactful ball carrier.

With the right physical development, I think Barron can become a really strong option for Munster as part of a primary hooking duo but when you don’t have the explosive ball carrying, you’ve either got to add it or really buff out the other areas of your game to compensate.

As you’re reading this you’re probably thinking that, man, that sounds an awful lot like Niall Scannell’s role-set. You’d be right. From a role-set perspective, Barron and Scannell offer a lot of the same things so, from a business perspective, you might well wonder if that allows you to cut Scannell in this contract window because Barron – who’s already on a two-year deal – offers you most of the same skill-set for less?

In 2023/24, would we be any weaker if it was Barron as the main Heavy Support Hooker, even as a squad option that could fill in as and when required? That will be the question, I think, and whether or not Barron has developed enough over the course of the last year to take up that role set.

The biggest hope for the next season is that Scott Buckley has a breakout year as a Power Hooker. He’s incredibly young yet – just 22 – and has come on an awful lot in the last two seasons despite missing time earlier in his career with a few injuries.

There’s a reason he got a two-year deal straight out of the second year of the academy and if you want something big and flashy to point at, as opposed to good training and performing at A-level rugby, you’d look instantly at Buckley’s two games against Wasps this year in the Champions Cup.

A Heineken Star of the Match performance put everyone on notice and he backed it up with a good performance against the same opposition later in the pools. He had a mixed rest of the season, coming on in the back row after a Thomas Ahern injury away to Zebre in the depths of the Six Nations window, before labouring at altitude on the rescheduled South Africa tour along with everyone else.

But that doesn’t matter. He established a baseline of what he was capable of and that was exactly what Munster needed in the hooker position going forward.

If Buckley’s progression holds this season, he could be set for a breakout season to the point where he could shoot up the depth chart in a hurry. I’m fairly sure that Buckley has all the right stuff, he just needs experience and the right pack build around him to allow him to thrive. Whatever happens over the next three seasons, I think developing Scott Buckley into a CORE 1 starting option is vitally important. He doesn’t have to do it this season but I do think that the pace of his development will inform any potential signings.

Chris Moore, an IQ signing from Exeter University, is on a one-year development deal but I wouldn’t say he has to become a Category A regular to warrant a new deal. He’s got the credentials to be a Power Hooker. That is physical size – around 6’2/110KG – a playing origin in the back row and a pretty balanced game that allows him to do what he does best which looks like it’s carrying the ball tight and winning collisions. All he has to do this season is show that he has enough potential to warrant another deal. That will be showing up and performing for Young Munster, training well over this preseason and taking any opportunity he gets. His work in the AIL will be quite important because you could argue that Declan Moore – another IQ hooker signed last season before being loaned out mid-year and then cut – played his way out of any future deal with some poor performances for Shannon in Division 1B. His throwing was a problem at that level so it knocked confidence in his ability to perform at higher levels.

Moore has the right stuff physically but we need to see what his level is. I think his work over the preseason to date will have clarified a lot for the coaches with him anyway, but he’s young enough to warrant patience and scaling up over another year on top of this one at least unless it’s very clear he’s really not going to work out.

Munster don’t have a hooker in the academy as of yet but that will change sooner rather than later I feel, with two or three standout options in the NTS/PTS system. If they work out in the A-games to come this season and in the AIL, they could be in the academy by the end of the season but certainly next summer.

	Player Position	Age Jan 1 2023	Grade	Contract Year?
Niall Scannell	HK	30	ASSESS 1	YES
Diarmuid Barron	HK	24	ASSESS 1	NO
Scott Buckley	HK	22	POTENTIAL FOUNDATION	NO
Chris Moore	HK	22	ASSESS 1	YES

I can’t know for sure but it seems to me that hooker is the one front row slot that seems ripe for a NIQ signing post World Cup. All the triggers are there – a high potential young player that the NIQ can split the position with, a relatively young squad-level hooker who can be improved, a stacked test roster in the position for at least another two seasons and higher potential young hookers in and around the academy who could benefit from exposure to a top-level operator for one or two seasons.

We’ll have more clarity as the season plays out.