What’s the Story With…?

Declan Moore

By Tom Savage4 min read

A few months back, I wrote a piece about Munster’s hookers and the need to find or develop a power hooker to complement the role sets already present in the squad.

Declan Moore, a New Zealand born, Australian based, Irish qualified hooker – 6’0″ tall and 112KG – might just fit that bill perfectly. So why haven’t you heard of him?

Well, when it came time for Moore to get selected for the Australian U20 side in the Oceania Championships in 2016, injury struck and it struck hard. I’ll let the man himself tell the story, as he related to the Melbourne Rebels site in 2019.

“I was named to play in the first game against New Zealand, which I was incredibly excited about,” Moore said.

“We were having our Captain’s Run the night before the match and in a freak accident, I got tackled and someone landed on my ankle a bit funny.

“Then I tried to stand up, but fell straight down and the doctor came, tried to assess the injury and my ankle just fell apart in his hands.

“I was then rushed back up to Brisbane that night to have my ankle put back together.

“That was a really tough pill to swallow at the time, I was absolutely shattered to miss the World Champs in Manchester, so it took me quite a while to come back from that.”

He went through the process of rehabbing that ankle only to seriously injure it again with another freak accident in 2018, setting him back to square one once again.

Even so, that Moore came back from that kind of double injury setback suggests a strong character; someone who was given every reason to jack the game in but kept at it all the same.

So what did he do next?

Well, he went back to Sydney University and the Shute Shield and kicked the doors off the competition.

Moore played 14 games for Sydney University in the Shute Shield in 2018/19 and scored 8 tries in just five starts. That was enough to gain the interest of the Melbourne Rebels, who signed him to a development contract ahead of the 2020 Super Rugby season in November 2019.

He was solidly third in the depth chart and would not get any minutes prior to the COVID-19 shut down in February 2020.

As he told the excellent Behind The Ruck; 

“In going from a semi-professional competition like the Shute Shield to being a full-time pro I learnt a lot, and I’m grateful for the opportunity that the Rebels gave me,” Moore reflected. “I think I only played five games of Super Rugby AU as the twenty-fourth man, so I would have liked to get a little bit more out of my time down there. But with what happened with Covid in 2020 it was a bit hard. However, Melbourne was a great experience and I think it’s paying off now.

When Moore returned to play Shute Shield rugby post Rebels, he had one of the most remarkable seasons in that competition in recent memory, scoring a remarkable 16 tries in just 9 appearances.

Sure, a lot of those were maul dot downs but that wasn’t the only thing to his game.

So he’s good – good enough to dominate the Shute Shield from a try-scoring perspective at the back of a dominant lineout maul – but he’s not just about adding the finishing touches to a close-range drive or ten. When I asked earlier why you haven’t heard of him, I’d be pretty comfortable saying that he’s a guy with test potential who was derailed by injury and then the pandemic.

His all-around game in 2021 drew praise from all around the Australian game wondering why this guy wasn’t contracted somewhere.

Without too much footage, I’m reliant on the word of people on the ground in Australia who have seen Moore playing this year for Sydney University. After chatting to multiple people – some involved at the pro-level – I can fall on a few consistent themes when it comes to Moore. He’s got a sharp lineout – albeit with some worries about throw variety and accuracy – good scrummaging basics and is strong around the field on both sides of the ball. How he scales up to URC and ECC tier rugby is a question mark, as is his fitness levels relative to the physical demands that will come his way playing in the front row in Europe.

If all those elements scale up, Moore will be a serious option for Munster almost immediately.

As per usual, any signing from outside will be met with “but what about X young player?”.

Forget about that. Moore will be Munster’s fourth senior hooker and provides a Power Hooker roleset that we don’t have in our current senior depth chart. Scott Buckley, in Year 2 of the academy, has the potential to be a Power Hooker too but pushing him too quickly would be a mistake given the attrition in the position and how damaging injuries can be to a younger player’s development.

Moore will immediately provide a role set counter-balance – off the bench initially, I would suggest – to the role sets provided by Scannell and O’Byrne.

So yes, Moore has the size and power, but it’s how he will combine with Scannell, O’Byrne and even Barron and Buckley in different matchday combinations that most interests me. When you have a Power Hooker, your other hookers can be more comfortable playing their best fitting game.

Moore, if he can stay fit – which, after two serious ankle injuries will be a concern – has the ability to round out of role sets in the hooker depth chart ahead of a massive season for the club.