Is there a unit more talked about than Munster’s front row?
Probably not. Ask anyone with more than a passing interest in Munster Rugby where they think we need to sign someone and they’ll probably say loosehead prop or hooker or both.
And they’re right – it’s probably the most obvious place for Munster to invest if investing there was possible in the classical sense. All indications are that, at the time of writing, our business in the front row is complete for 2024/25, bar a bolt out of the blue that has, somehow, passed me by during my time as an irritating question man to anybody who might know these things in the last two months.
The dissolution of the Rebels in Super Rugby is an intriguing prospect given some of the beef they have in the front row that will all be looking for work so late in the contracting cycle but, as of now, I’m not expecting any more incoming players to Munster’s front row until next season.
When we speak about Munster’s front row, though, we’re really talking about power in phase play. From a scrummaging perspective, we’re one of the better units in the URC and Europe without being freakishly dominant like the Sharks at their best. We don’t blow away teams too often but very rarely get washed out ourselves, so from a set-piece perspective, I’m pretty happy.
The big issue, for me, is having the top-end power to compete with top sides for 80 minutes during phase play on both sides of the ball. In this regard, I think guys like Jager – in particular – are exactly what we’ve been looking for and Jeremy Loughman has turned into an excellent option against the vast majority of teams we play week to week.
But once you start looking beyond those two guys, things get a little iffy. We have some imminent questions that need answering in the next 12 months regarding our tighthead and loosehead charts and I’m going to go through the most pressing ones right now.
Loosehead Prop
| Player | Role | Age on Jan 31 2025 | Contract Expiry | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jeremy Loughman | Heavy Support Forward | 29 | 2026 | CORE 1 |
| Josh Wycherley | Heavy Support Forward | 25 | 2025 | ASSESS 1 |
| Dave Kilcoyne | Loosehead Power Forward | 36 | 2025 | REPLACE 1 |
| Mark Donnelly | Power Scrummager | 23 | 2026 | FOUNDATION 2 |
| George Hadden | Power Scrummager | 21 | ACAD | FOUNDATION 2 |
| Keiran Ryan | Power Scrummager | 21 | ACAD | ASSESS 1 |
This position is the one I felt most strongly about once it became clear that getting the NIQ hooker we wanted was a no-go for various reasons. Munster’s ability to commit to the full “rebuild” we wanted this season was hurt by the unplanned addition of Conor Murray and Peter O’Mahony to our provincial budget on PONI deals. These contracts – with Munster and the IRFU contributing on a split percentage – ate into our financial wiggle room just enough to make shooting for a bigger name in the front row a little difficult, as did other unplanned issues elsewhere.
We were still interested in upgrading our loosehead depth chart, however, and made a big play for Leinster’s Jack Boyle, who was very close to signing before a full-court press by Leinster turned his head at the last second. Munster felt that Boyle had a Power Forward profile to his game that could round out our chart considerably and alternate with our #1 loosehead Jeremy Loughman, who has a really balanced profile and is comfortably our best loosehead.
Loughman isn’t as powerful as Andrew Porter – from a national perspective – on both sides of the ball or at the breakdown, but I would rate Loughman as a better passer and a more balanced and intelligent scrummager. He endured a rough start at Munster after moving down from the Leinster academy at 23 but he has turned into a really good player in the seven years since and has more than deserved the five Irish caps he’s earned off the back of that improvement. He is a CORE 1 talent and the only question is who we choose to alternate with him. This is where things start to get a little murky but, in a way, Loughman himself is a great example of how patience can work out.
Josh Wycherley has gone from a FOUNDATION 2 level talent on my charts to an ASSESS 1 guy for one simple reason; he hasn’t kicked on to the level I assumed he would have by now. Josh was a standout u20 during the same Grand Slam campaign as Craig Casey, John Hodnett, Scott Penny, Ben Healy and Harry Byrne.
He entered the Munster Academy a few months before that Six Nations in part because he was so highly rated that we didn’t want to leave his papers to chance in the aftermath of the tournament. Rightly so. He was a standout performer at that level, in both the scrum and with real oomph in the carry around the field. Wycherley didn’t feature for Munster during 2019/20 as an injury around the start of the season limited his availability before COVID-19 shut everything down in March of 2020. He made his first pro appearance for Munster in 2020/21 off the bench against Cardiff and then, famously, came out on top against the fearsome Rabah Slimani in his first start in the Champions Cup for 76 minutes. After getting pumped in the first few scrums, Wycherley turned it all around like something out of a Rocky movie.
“You have him Josh boy, you have him”
In the aftermath of this, I still wasn’t fully sold on Josh Wycherley as a Foundation 1-level talent. From the Depth Chart article that year;
…Josh Wycherley kinda has to work out as a Potential Foundation talent. Despite his excellent performance during the early stages of 2020/21, I’d still rate Josh Wycherley as a Potential Foundation player because much of his profile as a senior player is yet to be determined. If he works out as I expect him to, Wycherley will be CORE 1 for Munster and on track for Ireland by the end of this season but he’s got to show it by getting on the field and impressing consistently.
Without James Cronin, there is no wiggle room on Wycherley’s development but that seems like a measured risk on Munster’s behalf. They, in concert with the IRFU, would have likely assessed Cronin’s contract demands/value relative to what they expected from Wycherley this season and concluded that an offer to Cronin relative to his worth wasn’t in line with the budget. That sets the stage for Josh Wycherley quite nicely but that comes with pressure, too.
That article hasn’t aged all that well, especially with my read of Knox as a Foundation 1-level talent, but I think my read of Wycherley, then and now, is correct. The issue for Josh is that he’s played plenty of games – he’s the most capped prop under the age of 25 on the island right now – but he’s yet to have anything close to a breakout season, in my opinion.
That isn’t to say that he didn’t play well off the bench for Munster in the title run-in last season – he was decent – but for a guy who stood out so much at u20 level, I’m still waiting for that run of big games where he dominates, either in the scrum or during phase play.
Josh is heading into a contract year so, for me, this is the biggest playoff run/preseason of his career. Quite simply, I think Wycherley needs to add around 5/10kg to his frame and establish either a Power Scrummager or Power Forward roleset to avoid getting cycled down the chart contractually post-Kilcoyne or cut entirely.
It’s easier said than done, of course, and I could equally see Munster being willing to gamble another season on Wycherley at the very least to see if he can evolve in his late 20s, as Jeremy Loughman did. My worry, as of now, is that Wycherley doesn’t evolve his role and he tops out as a mid-level heavy support forward without the size or athleticism to ever really enter consideration for the test arena. I think he only does this by putting more KG on his frame. Josh is still listed at 108kg, which is at least 6/7kg smaller than even the smallest test looseheads.
Ox Nche is 114kg, Ellis Genge is 116kg, Cyrill Baille is 116kg, Pierre Schoeman is listed at 118gk and Andrew Porter is listed back up at 120kg.
If Wycherley can make that role shift, he can be a CORE 1 talent and partner with Loughman for the next cycle. If not, I think things get unpredictable.
At the start of the season, I was convinced that this was Dave Kilcoyne’s last season at the province. When he injured his shoulder against Leinster in December 2023, I was even more convinced. When I heard Munster were chasing after Jack Boyle I was… well, you get it.
But here he is, holding a fresh new contract for 2024/25. Why? Well, I think two things are at play here; the first is that we missed out on Boyle so cutting Kilcoyne would leave us with a very mono-role senior chart at loosehead as it stands. Both Loughman and Wycherley are heavy support forwards and Donnelly is a power scrummager with a support forward profile around the field. Dave Kilcoyne is a bona fide loosehead power forward so even though his injury profile at this stage is a worry and he’s been at REPLACE 1 status for the last three years, he offers us role variety that we otherwise wouldn’t have.
You can put Kilcoyne in smaller, less experienced packs and use him as a carrying option to either start or finish the game while being a veteran scrummager at this stage of his career. He was still heavily involved at Ireland level up to this season – for the same reasons of role variety – so while he might not be a power option against the biggest packs anymore, he still packs enough punch that a year contract makes sense.
This is almost certainly his last contract, though, so that power forward role set will be one we’ll be looking for internally and externally when he eventually does retire.
Mark Donnelly, who goes onto a senior contract this summer after three years in the academy, is a very interesting young prop who’s just off the back of a good season of AIL with Cork Constitution in Division 1A.
Donnelly has been in the academy for a full three years and used that time pretty well. All but the freakiest of freak props – in phase play, usually – get bumped up to a senior deal early without external pressure and everyone else has to spend their time in the academy eating, lifting and scrummaging, eating, lifting and scrummaging, eating, lifting and scrummaging and getting as much AIL and Provincial A minutes under their belt as possible after their national U20 time is done.
Injuries are commonplace at this stage of players’ development because the human body was not designed to undergo the physical pressure that even average URC tier scrummagers have to endure, let alone the heavy leather collisions in the carry and at the breakdown on both sides of the ball in the middle of the field. Donnelly has grown in size every year he’s been in the academy to the point he’s at now, which is getting very close to the ideal “scrum cube” shape that marks out a Power-Scrummaging Loosehead.
At the moment, the scrum is still a relatively important set piece, albeit one that World Rugby is trying to nerf in the name of spectacle but that doesn’t mean that Power Scrummaging Loosehead won’t provide value going forward though. The new scrum laws – which turn resets into freekicks that can’t be re-scrummaged – will reward accurate scrummagers, especially against opposition teams who have decided that this new law amendment means they don’t have to scrummage anymore.
Donnelly shows all the hallmarks of being a Power Scrummager. Whenever I’ve watched him at AIL level – where he’s played pretty extensively – he’s handled himself really well against the scrum first, second and third tightheads of the AIL. Other young looseheads like Jack Boyle and Paddy McCarthy have regularly been run through at that 1A level but it never happened to Donnelly, which bodes well for his transition to full-on senior rugby as a 23-year-old.
He’s not a power carrier in phase play but the 110kg he’s currently playing at – likely to top out around 115kg as he ages – goes a long way to making him an effective carrier from close range and an impactful breakdown player.
How he tops out remains to be seen. Like the other young looseheads – Hadden and Ryan – he’ll need a big preseason in the gym and in the kitchen to come back in the kind of power shape that will earn him URC minutes.
***
Next season is an important one in the loosehead depth chart. Without an obvious young phenom to invest minutes in, I see this position being one that will see a lot of capital spent on getting approval for an NIQ loosehead power forward ahead of 2025/26.
Both Kilcoyne and Wycherley have expiring contracts in 2025 – a decision looms there and, depending on Wycherley’s pre-season, Munster might say they’ll be comfortable losing both to then push that wage spend towards a level raising NIQ. I expect Hadden to get promoted ahead of Ryan next season ahead of 2024/25 but a good preseason from Hadden could see him push on sooner than expected. Kieran Ryan is a good player but I can see him maybe turning his strong scrummaging fundamentals over to the tighthead side given the flux incoming in that depth chart over the next 12 months. He’s already played there for Shannon this year and has Munster A/Development minutes in the position also.
If he can push his frame to north of 115kg, I think he’s got the fundamentals to make a run there but I think that decision has to already have been made, if it’s to work at all.
In the next three years, I can easily see the case for a NIQ signing here unless Wycherley/Donnelly/Hadden takes a massive step forward this coming off-season and into the early going of the URC. If they aren’t making an impact at that stage – and the coaches will know this in August – I think the developmental case to sign a top-level loosehead ahead of 2025/26 will be clear, not just to help whatever young looseheads we do invest in but to also invest in the potential of our young hookers, who have elite potential, and our younger tightheads.
