Last year around this time, Munster were starting out the URC season with wins over the Sharks, the Stormers and then a thrilling win away to the Scarlets, pundits up and down the Irish rugby sphere were talking about “Munster’s Evolution”. But this is not a new phenomenon. People have been talking about Munster’s attack evolving, devolving and then evolving again for years.

That is a knock-on effect – no pun intended – of Munster being trophyless since 2011. When you are expected to win trophies and you don’t, the questions are normally asked about the offensive side of the ball because, typically, that’s where the biggest obstacles to winning trophies are found. Having a good defence is expected and, in some ways, “easier” to coach. Having an elite attack is incredibly difficult if you don’t have the size and power to play with simplicity.

At Munster’s peak, we didn’t need an elite attack as it was traditionally recognized because we had an international standard 1-10, a highly competent and effective midfield, and rock solid, low error back three players. At that point, we were trying to find the “one player” who would take our game to the next level because that’s largely how the game worked at that point. After narrowly losing at the business end of the 2001/02 and 2002/03 Heineken Cup campaigns, Munster signed Christian Cullen to be that one player who would change us from being a solid team capable of getting to semi-finals and finals, into a side that could win them.

Our problem was that when the levels went up in the early 2000s, we struggled to score tries in big games. When we lost to Toulouse in the 2002/03 Heineken Cup semi-final, we scored penalties and drop goals but struggled to put them away when we were 6-0 up midway through the first half and then 12-6 up with 10 minutes left in the second half.

Go back to the Heineken Cup final of 2001/02 against Leicester and it’s more of the same. We were 9-5 up heading into the second half after three penalties but we struggled to score the try that would have killed off the game.

Christian Cullen was believed to be the answer to that problem.

Was Cullen that good? In short, yes. In the early 2000s, Cullen was widely considered to be the best-attacking fullback in the game and, in theory, he could have taken Munster’s attack to another level. Unfortunately, one injury after another meant he never got a chance to do that and Munster never saw anything close to his best during his four seasons here.

The days of one player making a seismic difference are long gone. You need good players, of course, but far more important than one or two good players is the need to have an attacking system capable of generating the points you need to win games.

That didn’t stop Munster from becoming European Champions in 2006 via systemic excellence and a pack and halfbacks that were all at their peak but that, in turn, didn’t stop Munster from bringing in Doug Howlett in the summer of 2007 to have another crack-off filling in that missing offensive piece with One Player either. This time it worked, at least for a time.

Post-2008 Munster were clearly trying to make some adjustments in line with the emerging trends in the game. The introduction of the ELVs changed core elements of Munster’s system at the time. The maul was completely depowered, for example, and with that Munster’s entire game sequence of possession was altered. The changes around the ruck meant that we couldn’t boss possession with the same inevitable slow march up the field that we had perfected from 05/06 on and with the change to the kicking rules from the 22 stressing our use of O’Gara, we were plunged into uncomfortable new territory.

That said, we adapted well initially. We won the Magners League, got to a Heineken Cup semi-final, and arguably could and should have won that too. We had used Paul Warwick as a secondary playmaker to really good effect for Category A games that season but with fewer penalties being awarded, O’Gara felt a little depowered.

For example, we scored 5 more tries in 2008/2009 in the Heineken Cup pool stages than we did in 2007/2008 but we only scored 13 more points.

With new laws specifically designed to cut down penalties, specially kickable penalties, we had lost a core element of the system that worked for us along with other adjoined elements like the maul, the interpretation of the breakdown and a sped-up game that didn’t suit a heavyweight pack that we’d been building since the early part of that decade. In some ways, I think we overcorrected for the changes in the maul, for example, with our conditioning and coaching decisions post-Kidney.

In the years after the ELVs – some were kept, some weren’t – we never got back to the perfect synergy of system and results despite getting to a few semi-finals and beating Leinster in the 2011 Magners League final.

When the great generation of players from the early 2000s began to age out and retire – despite our best efforts to keep them all playing well into the mid-to-late 30s – Munster were left looking for a new way to play. A new system, essentially, was needed and so the hiring of Rob Penney from Canterbury was greenlit after the departure of Tony McGahan.

Bedding in what was then a radically different style of rugby wasn’t without its challenges and, realistically, was probably a bridge too far for the core of the team that was left as it stood in 2012/13. Ronan O’Gara looked wildly unsuited for what Rob Penney wanted from his #10 at that point and Ian Keatley – signed the season before – was flat out playing better in the system as it was. Ian Keatley wasn’t as good as O’Gara if you consider their histories and achievements in the game, both before this point and since, but that didn’t change the fact that he was better suited to what Penney wanted.

The flux there was that O’Gara was more influential and, crucially, a better goal kicker which was more effective at the top end of the game whereas Keatley was a better talent on-ball, which was more beneficial in lower to mid-level games. I suppose in an ideal world, Munster would have gone into the market after O’Gara to get exactly the #10 they wanted or at least some proper firepower for Keatley to use but, at that point, all of the financial power was in France and England. The means by which to sign One Player who could turn around Munster’s attacking fortunes was more difficult than it had been previously.

As the years have passed it’s become harder and harder to sign One Player to fix your attacking structure. It is all about The System and your squad’s understanding of it. The One Player exception in the modern era would be signing a flyhalf as the finishing touch of your System.

That choice of flyhalf is key to the system running as designed because not all #10s are created equal. We can sometimes run on the assumption that every #10 should be capable of running any attacking system but that’s far from the truth. Different systems demand different things from their primary playmakers. Who would better suit Racing 92’s system as it was constructed in 2018? Finn Russell or Handré Pollard? Who would better suit the Leicester Tigers system in 2022? Handré Pollard or Finn Russell?

Finding the right flyhalf for your system is hugely important and that is the challenge for Munster this upcoming season. What is the right system? Is the system you’re building one that is effective for creating winning rugby? If so, who is the right type of #10 to run that system? Do you have that #10 at the club? If you do, how many #10s of that type do you have at the club?

These are fundamental questions for Munster building into this URC season, that last one in particular. If you are running a specific style, there isn’t any point in having Finn Russell and Handré Pollard, for example, competing for the primary playmaker spot. They are fundamentally different players that excel at different things.

Look at Leinster right now and look for fundamental differences between Johnny Sexton and the players behind him in the depth chart at #10 all the way down to the academy. How many Sexton-like qualities do you see there? All physically quite big #10s – no one under 6’2″, all close to 95KG – all of them relatively durable defenders, all of them relatively decent carriers on a spectrum with enough heft to sell the inside/outside loop to varying degrees and long, raking boots to a man.

That type of primary playmaker suits Leinster’s system – and also influences the Irish system as a result because of the common factor of Sexton being top of the chart. A 3-2-X system like Ireland and Leinster use regularly generally requires a physically bigger #10 because the requirements for progressing the ball across the field are different to a more fluid 3-3-1 shape.

A 3-2-X will often create a look like this as it progresses across the pitch in the aftermath of a three-pod hit-up.

These “bridging” phases require stronger, bigger #10s because, with only two forwards to hit on the first layer, there is more pressure on the handler to sell contact directly off the catch. If they can’t, the blitz on the narrower forward pod is more effective. Sure, you can scheme an inside loop option to take the pressure off the #10 – like Leinster do with Lowe – but the #10 has to be able to hold up their end of the bargain physically. This is why bigger, more durable #10s are suited to the 3-2-X shape, in my opinion. With fewer forward targets for the defence to target every other phase the #10 needs to commit defenders physically on the inside because the defence is compacted there. Without that physical threat, a 3-2-X system won’t work consistently as designed without heavy scheming to compensate.

A 3-3-1 system, at its base level, rewards smaller, more nimble, quicker #10s. On the exact same progression, the defensive focus is much different because there are more forward threats.

This isn’t so much about winning collisions as it is about being able to attack the inside lane created by the extra forward in the pod with pace, agility and acceleration.

If you don’t have that inside agility, so to speak, the 3-3-X gets swallowed up by defensive line speed and leads to more intercepts as your passing lanes to the wider forwards in the pod become impossibly narrow. You can compensate for this with a really developed kicking game and an incredibly accurate passing game but it stresses those skills incrementally. The slower you are, the more variety and control you have to have in your kicking game and the slicker and sharper your passing has to be. As the levels go up, those margins get even smaller.

If you do have that inside agility, you force the floating defender to compress on the inside lane and the other defenders along with them.

That makes the whole system run better and, with that speed and agility, you are better suited to resetting quickly as part of a multiple playmaker system, which a 3-3-1 system needs to get the absolute most out of it.

When you consider these differences between what, on the face of it, are quite similar attacking systems you can see the importance in picking the right #10 so that you aren’t forever chasing the next One Player who can fix all of what ails your attack.