The Return of RG Snyman
It means a lot more than just World Class athlete and incredibly rare Tighthead Lock Power Forward, a role type associated with winning trophies, returns from what has been, essentially, three years of an injury nightmare that almost defies belief. The last time RG Snyman played three games in a row was in the World Cup of 2019 which only seems somewhat recent because it was pre-pandemic. Snyman joined Munster in May 2020 – two months earlier than planned – and straight away began impressing people in the HPC with just how freakish a player he was. He’s a World Cup winner so, yeah, he’s going to be good obviously but straight away he was showcasing the kind of physical ability that Munster had, over the last few years, been losing to at the top end of Europe and in URC finals.
Snyman was our not-so-secret weapon who would smash the glass ceiling we’d worn our faces off from pressing against into smithereens and take us to that next level.
Van Graan, the man who signed Snyman, was acutely aware of Munster’s power deficit in the front five over the previous two and half seasons. All of Munster’s big failures in that time – away to Racing in the European Cup semi-final, away to Leinster in the RDS (x 2) and to Saracens.
A few months before Snyman arrived, Munster lost a hastily arranged PRO14 final against Leinster 16-6 in a game where Munster were crying out for someone who could change the physics of the game in Munster’s favour. A narrow loss to Toulouse in Europe a week later was the rubber stamp on that need. We were too small and not powerful enough to impact the top sides in Europe.
We needed size. We needed power.
We needed Rudolph Gerhardus Snyman.
Damian De Allende was a level changer in the backs, RG Snyman was a perception changer. With him in our pack, the problems of the previous few seasons turned into opportunities. There’s all of what he brings, yes – ball-carrying power, the ability to pass and offload out of the compressions he forces all on his own, defensive stopping power, elite tighthead lock scrummaging, game-changing latching, huge size in the lineout, huge power in the maul – but his presence meant our most supporting build front rows could focus more on their strengths, instead of taking on those extra 3/4 carries each per game that burned them out.
Snyman would change that. One man doesn’t make a team, sure, but when you look at the impact both Rocky Elsom, Nathan Hines and Brad Thorn had on good Leinster teams, you could see the potential with RG.
Elsom, Hines and Thorn were perception changers that turn you from one team into another.
Then, seven minutes into his first game for Munster, everything changed.
An ACL injury after coming down off a counter-jump. Cruel, really. At the time I remember watching Munster go on transition after the lineout steal and kept waiting for RG to pop into the offensive line. Then the camera panned back a bit to show him still down on the grass where he fell. Not good. Then he limped off which, fool that I was at the time, thought was a good sign. Munster lost that game to Leinster and, a few days later, Munster confirmed Snyman was out with a significant knee injury.
It ended up being the whole season after the fire pit incident but, that’s OK, start again in the preseason for his second year, hit the ground running and… shit, he injured the same knee in his third game back taking a restart against the Scarlets. He took the ball at the same time he got hit at an angle (innocuously) by Aaron Shingler, his knee buckled sideways and that was season two gone, just like that.
In the interim, Munster had been going back and forth on whether or not to renew Snyman’s contract. He initially signed on for a two-year deal and, after just 46 minutes of game time in his second season without a renewal, that would be it.
Do we take the risk of signing him on again? Munster had Jason Jenkins in house already with a far less serious injury and was a lock of a similar, if lower class, role build. If RG Snyman is the Tighthead Lock Power Forward at McDonald’s, Jason Jenkins is the Tighthead Lock Power Forward we have at home. Munster couldn’t keep both so they went to work getting the dispensation and then the money for another two-year deal for Snyman because everything that was true about Snyman when we signed him was still true, except now we also knew what a big character and leader he was for the squad. Jenkins is a good player but RG Snyman is a different level of player. Even out with a second knee injury, getting him on board for another two seasons was a no-brainer. We just needed to get him fit.
With the word from the specialist and the S&C team that he would be ready for week 1 of the URC, Munster got the deal done.
But knee injuries are like newborn babies. They don’t run on our schedule. Sometimes our schedule might sync up with their schedule, but make no mistake – that is down to them, not you pushing for it. Snyman had a few “setbacks” in his rehab that, on the outside, felt like hammer blows because all everyone wanted was this guy back playing. It wasn’t just because we wanted that Perception Changing player back in the saddle for Munster after three years of waiting since his signing was announced. It was because everyone could see what a good guy he was on Access Munster’s excellent series on his rehab, how hard he was working and how well he’d settled into Munster. He seems to love it here so we love him back in spades.
This season kept seeing the dates floated unofficially down the dark corridors of Rugby Rumours from well-placed and not-so-well-placed sources getting pushed back. First, RG was targeting the South Africa Select XV in Cork. Then it was the first block of the Champions Cup. Then it was the second block in January. All that lead us here. Tonight.
RG Snyman will tog out for the first time since the 10th of September 2021 and the reception he’ll get will reflect the catharsis that he feels ten-fold, even in the relatively small confines of Musgrave Park.
Welcome back, RG.
Come through this game, get it out of the way and then let’s go win something.
Scarlets: 15. Johnny McNicholl; 14. Tom Rogers, 13. Joe Roberts, 12. Ioan Nicholas, 11. Steff Evans; 10. Sam Costelow, 9. Dane Blacker; 1. Kemsley Mathias, 2. Shaun Evans, 3. Sam Wainwright, 4. Vaea Fifita, 5. Sam Lousi, 6. Josh Macleod (capt), 7. Dan Davis, 8. Sione Kalamafoni.
Replacements: 16. Taylor Davies, 17. Steff Thomas, 18. Javan Sebastian, 19. Morgan Jones, 20. Carwyn Tuipulotu, 21. Gareth Davies, 22. Dan Jones, 23. Johnny Williams.
Four of the Scarlets’ five wins in the URC to date have come in 2023. At the start of the season, the Scarlets were swimming in even more woe-infested waters than Munster were – and that’s saying something.
They’ve been on a solid upturn since December with four wins from four in the Challenge Cup and they’ve mostly taken that momentum into the URC with four wins against Edinburgh, the Bulls, Cardiff and the Ospreys. All of that recent URC run has happened in Wales – in fact, their only away win also happened in Wales – but I don’t think that’s hugely relevant to their general improvement. What’s actually really interesting is how Scarlets have gone about this revival.
They don’t have a massive amount of current Welsh internationals that they rely on for their best performances. At the moment they have Ken Owens, Wyn Jones, Rhys Patchell, Leigh Halfpenny and Kieran Hardy away at Welsh camp – and they haven’t been released for this – with Samson Lee injured. Nothing about what the Scarlets have done really well over the last block of games has relied on what their current internationals produce.
They are far more reliant on their core of Pacific Island heavy hitters in the pack, namely Sam Lousi, Vaea Fifita and Sione Kalamafoni. They are the key to almost everything good the Scarlets do and their pack build for this game is quite interesting with Kalamafoni acting as a Half Lock Power Forward alongside two small forward build flankers.
The returning Macleod is a heavy wing forward while Dan Davis is a nippy, agile and breakdown-dominant strike wing forward. This Scarlets’ team is built for mobility and built to transition. Go back and watch their game against Edinburgh in the last round and you’ll see most of that lead being built off the back of Edinburgh’s mistakes. An intercept cost Edinburgh seven points, yes, but the biggest killer was a dreadfully poor lineout performance that allowed the Scarlets all kinds of position, territory and try-scoring opportunities.
When I watched the game back this week one player stood out again and again. Steff Evans. He’s everywhere for this Scarlets team and he destroyed Edinburgh a few weeks ago.
Munster have to be very careful with the Scarlets set piece launch plays. Defensive IQ and mobility from 10/12/13 and Hodnett, as well as aggression from Nash and Daly when it comes to shooting into that screen and making Evans make plays under huge physical pressure.
