Ryan eager to make most of festive opportunity

Christmas holidays don’t come a whole lot better than the one recently enjoyed by John Ryan.

The PRO14 fixtures worked out so kindly on this occasion, that the Munster squad were allowed two days completely free of rugby, and so the burly 30-year-old Munster prop was able to get some great fun out of his 16 month-old son Felix and enjoy the occasion to the fullest.

“All we had to do was stay away from the alcohol and the chocolate,” he laughs.

The festivities are well and truly over, given the importance of tomorrow’s game against Leinster at a sold-out Thomond Park. The man from Berrings, Co Cork, isn’t for complaining, especially because the injuries that have blighted his career all too often at the most inopportune of times are mercifully no longer rearing their ugly heads.

The 19-stone six-footer clearly enjoyed his rugby during the autumn period when, after shaking off another injury, he scored his first try in 16 appearances for Ireland against the USA and carried the ball frequently in open play while performing his primary duties at close quarters with his customary honesty and efficiency.

No wonder Joe Schmidt at Ireland and Johann van Graan with Munster were delighted to have him fit and available.

“At the start, my season was going well,” Ryan reflects. “Then I got injured but it was good to get back for Europe and the Gloucester game, that was my first start and I’m pretty happy with how it’s going.

“It’s certainly a lot better than last year, when I don’t think I got a single Champions Cup start, so to have three at this stage after four games is great and I’m delighted with progress.

“It was great to get that ankle right and once I was fit, Joe included me in the squad and I suppose that was the plan for a while. I got that one game and took my opportunity.

“My fitness probably needs to improve again as I haven’t played a lot after my injury. So I have a bit of work to do if I’m to give him food for thought ahead of the Six Nations.”

The opportunities to prove to Schmidt that he can do a job for his country through February and March and on to the World Cup next September will come thick and fast over the next few weeks, starting tomorrow with the classic encounter with Leinster.

“The next few weeks are huge for us,” he agrees.

“We’ve had Ulster, now it’s Leinster, then Connacht, then Europe. Everyone wants to put their hands up at this period of time.

“The Leinster front row is the Irish front row and so we’ll obviously be targeting that. That’s natural enough for us but we need to do it cohesively, because you can go off at a tangent and do your own thing and not come out on the right side of the scoreboard.

“Of course you want to focus on the Interpros. We have lost to Ulster and so we now want to get back on the horse this weekend. It’s important in the context of the league table.

“There’s a big block of games coming up but we’ll be going as strong as we can for both games against Leinster and Connacht, looking to get maximum points because that’s what we need to do to catch up with Glasgow.

“The coaches may have one eye on Gloucester, but the players don’t. We are fully focused on Leinster. It’s going to be a huge battle.

“I fully expect them to come down fully loaded. They may have a few players pulled back, but they’ll still come down with a very strong team and we wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Munster’s record against Leinster in recent years has been quite disappointing, having now lost the last four in a row. Their most recent victory came way back in December 2016, when they overcame Leinster 29-17 at Thomond Park.

They left the Aviva Stadium in October feeling hard done by some of the decisions of Welsh referee Ben Whitehouse that contributed to a 30-22 defeat in a thriller.

If anything, though, the Munster players are smarting more over the way they allowed Leinster to run away from them in the opening stages of that fixture 12 months ago.

“You look at the last four, the losses haven’t been huge, just a point in the semi-final (16-15) last May,” Ryan points out.

“Last Christmas is the one we want to give back to the fans because we let them take off in the first 15 minutes when they ran riot. We need to put in a performance the fans will be happy with and we can reward them for giving us a packed house and a great atmosphere at the weekend.”