What do you think of Tom Clarkson’s Lions’ chances off the back of his performance against the Bulls? Was it enough to put him in the frame? – Michael F. 

Savage: I don’t think Andy Farrell needs any invitation to bring a few extra Irish guys on this Lions tour. Clarkson could well be one of them, in theory. My views on it are that while he was certainly crafty when it counted against Jan-Hendrik Wessels last Saturday, I think the rush to coronate it as a “coming of age” is a little hasty. As I said, it was a very good performance against a notoriously dangerous scrum, but I’d wait a little to see how he does as a front liner for Ireland and, we presume, Leinster in the next 12 months. Wessels is a little too raw yet to be awarded a “coming of age” trophy for besting him.

I don’t think Clarkson is ever going to be down as a physical freak tighthead in the Power Forward role they’ve been trying to duplicate since Tadhg Furlong. From a physical standpoint, he isn’t the kind of animal that Leinster have been recruiting into their academy as of late, for example, but if that scrummaging can become a point of difference for him – and he looks to have the smarts for it – then he could be a good to great long term option for both club and country.

Hi Tom, for the next mailbag, maybe you could talk a little bit about JVG’s time at Bath vs Munster, and if he kept his style of play at Bath, etc. – BILLDOOR 

Savage: Johann was either a deeply divisive figure in Munster when he left, or a good man done wrong by the system, depending on who you talk to. For me, I think it was both, which is an absolute cop out answer. He was always good to me, for example, so I liked him on a personal level. Now, was that a tactical decision by him to keep me broadly onside, given my influence in the Munster fan/online rugby space? Probably. I don’t mean to gas myself up with that, but I mean, like, I’m a nice guy, but not so nice that I warrant a 90-minute how’s it going meeting in a coffee shop ahead of his first year with Larkham for no reason.

So Johann is smart. He gets the game on the field and off. He understood how important it was that his methodology was understood by people who could explain it, i.e. me, especially in the context of the time we met, which was before the 2019/20 campaign. There was a delay in the start of the new season because of the upcoming 2019 World Cup, and Munster had just announced the signings of Graham Rowntree and Stephen Larkham to replace the departing Jerry Flannery and Felix Jones earlier that summer.

Munster and Van Graan, in particular, had shipped a fair bit of criticism after losing heavily to Saracens in a European Cup semi-final that season, but the real heat came after a completely slapless 24-9 loss to Leinster in the PRO14 semi-final, a game I had to check up on Munster’s site because I had completely memory holed it. You did too, admit it.

That coming year would be Johann’s second full season in charge, and plans were already afoot to load up Damian De Allende and a big South African tighthead for his third season, but that was later Nucifora’d into the signing of RG Snyman. As an aside, you can tell that the Snyman singing was a course correction because Munster already had Jean Kleyn and Tadhg Beirne – two Irish internationals at the time – in situ.

It didn’t make any sense, but that was because Munster wanted a big-name tighthead prop to round out our front five and were denied that by David Nucifora. The compromise was RG Snyman, who joined on €500k a year and got injured for the entire season in his first game.

At the time, Johann was essentially the Director of Rugby at Munster during a very transitional time in the playing squad, all while he had a lot of his capital tied up in those expensive (witheringly expensive) signings, two of whom were injured for almost all of his tenure. The injuries to Carbery and Snyman, in particular, badly wounded Johann’s time at Munster.

For example, how would Bath have done this season if they were missing Thomas Du Toit and Finn Russell for the entirety of it? They wouldn’t have a Challenge Cup and Prem double, that’s for sure. This reflects the core of Van Graan’s philosophy, which is that your squad is your style.

At a base level, Van Graan believes in the fundamentals of winning rugby games at the elite level; a strong kicking game, a rock solid scrum and lineout and a defence that forces turnovers. Everything he does or tries to do is built from this baseline, and the players he signs usually fill out these qualities first and foremost. But people assume, off the back of this, that Joey Carbery or Finn Russell aren’t “Van Graan players” because they represent something of a maverick rugby style.

But that’s the thing; that quality is why Johann wants them. Van Graan told me himself, directly, that transition and counter-attack are the most important parts of the game outside of the set piece because it’s the one time when defences aren’t settled. He spent a withering amount of Bath’s money on Finn Russell because he has the all-court game and vision to unlock teams off the set piece while also being a lethal playmaker on transition. Van Graan wanted the same from Carbery. So yes, Van Graan’s base game is quite conservative, but he wanted player power to be the basis of our transition game, much like what he’s done at Bath with Finn Russell.

What’s the story (!) with Munster signing a prop? – Denis H. 

Ok, so a lot of the rumours floating around the dark alleys of Munster Rugby in the last two months have been that Munster are in the business of signing a NIQ tighthead, ostensibly to replace the retiring Stephen Archer, who played 19 times for the club this season just gone at 37 years of age.

When you hear these rumours, you have to consider a few different things: who’s telling me this, why are they telling me this, and how plausible does this sound, knowing what I know?

Without going into who exactly told me, five or six people, all of whom who are pretty well connected told me that Munster were in the market for a tighthead given the risk of going into next season with a 37-year-old John Ryan as our #1 tighthead for key parts of the season if Jager’s propensity for picking up knocks that keep him out for two or three games at a time continues.

John Ryan is a bona fide club legend at this point, but I don’t think having him start big games in the URC or Europe next season is an (a) ideal use of him at this point of his career if it can be helped or (b) putting new boss Clayton McMillan in the best position to succeed immediately.

Here’s a GIF that just cracks me up for a reason I can’t fully explain.

When any highly sought-after coach takes over at a big club, there are usually a few “new toys” brought along with him to maximise their chances of success. It happened with Rassie Erasmus (Kleyn, Marshall, Taute plus a good few mid-season loans), it happened with Jacques Neinaber at Leinster for his first full season (Snyman, Slimani and Barrett), and chances are it’ll happen with McMillan where possible.

The issue comes back to the usual snags: budget and player availability. From what I’ve heard, the money is there for a signing with savings related to player retirements and, allegedly, some private funding, but if and when a signing is made, that won’t be made clear.

One of the names I’ve heard related to this move for the last month or two has been the Chiefs’ starting tighthead George Dyer, although that name hasn’t been echoed from the guys I know in New Zealand. Dyer would make sense given McMillan already coaches him, but it’s complicated by a possible All Blacks call-up for Dyer in the coming weeks and months. Signing any player out of New Zealand is always tricky because of the allure of the black jersey. It’s easier to sign guys who are either former All Blacks with no way back in due to the current head coach, or guys who have been passed over four or five windows in a row and see the writing on the wall for their prospective All Black career. For those guys, a move overseas makes sense, both financially and development-wise.

Is Dyer in that bracket? We’ll see. I don’t think there’ll be any announcements on the final make-up of the coaching ticket, S&C lead and the playing squad until next week anyway, when McMillan will move over to Limerick immediately after the completion of Super Rugby. He is not messing around. Expect him on the ground in the HPC before the end of June, getting the preseason together, assessing some guys in the squad and getting the preseason into gear.