Donal Lenihan: Are Munster equipped to finally lift silverware this season?
larger but perhaps not as clear
As we bid farewell to a year most will be more than happy to leave behind, 2021 promises to be even more frantic for professional rugby.
Amidst the many challenges facing the game, not least the growing battle for financial survival coupled with the potential fallout from the legal cases surrounding the impact of concussions, there may be some outcomes and events to challenge the doom and gloom in the year ahead.
The Guinness PRO14 has morphed into an old fashioned inter-provincial series with the potential candidates to contest the final in March now, more or less, confined to the four proud provinces of Ireland.
In reality, Munster already have one foot placed in that decider and victory over nearest rivals Connacht in Galway next Saturday will go a long way towards cementing that. On the basis of Connacht’s superb performance against Leinster in the RDS last weekend, a win for the visitors will be far from straightforward. The challenge then focuses on securing more points in their Conference than the table toppers in Conference A.
Having seen an astonishing unbeaten run of 26 PRO14 games go west, literally, last Saturday with that defeat to an inspired Connacht side, Leinster must now beat Ulster on Friday night to wrestle back control of their destiny.
Even in defeat in Belfast last weekend, Munster’s vastly understrength side showed enough fight and determination in their first loss of the season to suggest they will be a very difficult side to overturn when at full strength.
The big question now is, having lost 10 semi-finals across domestic and European competition along with two PRO12/14 finals since winning the Celtic League back in 2011, are Munster equipped to finally lift silverware this season.
On the evidence of what we have seen over the last few months, the answer is yes. Whether that transpires to be the case is an altogether different proposition. The most realistic route towards breaking the trophy drought is in capturing the Guinness PRO14 title next March.
The very title carries a certain anomaly given there are only 12 teams contesting for honours this season with the Cheetahs and Southern Kings no longer part of the equation. The fact they will be replaced by the four big South African teams next season suggests that domestic honours - if they can be described as such with such a diverse geographical spread attaching to the new PRO16 variety of the tournament - will become even harder to achieve in the future.
That is why Munster need to strike now. It will help their cause immeasurably — even if no crowds will be back in time for the scheduled final on March 27 — if they can accumulate more points than their Conference A rivals leading to a potential decider being staged at Thomond Park. Psychologically, that would be huge, regardless of whether they face Leinster or Ulster.
There is, of course, another path to silverware open for Munster in Europe this season even if the much coveted Heineken Champions Cup still appears a step too far, at least in the continued injury absence of Joey Carbery and, more especially, RG Snyman.
Despite an unbeaten start to the Champions Cup this season, the absence of a bonus point in either of their opening wins may yet count against Munster when the permutations that prune the last eight are decided. Would it prove disastrous if they failed to make the knockout phase of the tournament?
I’ll ask the question another way. As a supporter, would you prefer to see Munster exit the Champions Cup at the quarter or semi-final stage or fail to make the knockout phase and qualify instead for the last eight in the Challenge Cup, a competition this Munster squad are more than capable of winning.
A domestic and/or a European trophy would amount to serious progress, especially with so many promising young players on board who look set to play a major part in Munster’s future for a decade to come. Then again, there are plenty out there who will scoff at the notion of Munster competing in the second layer of European competition.
I believe that lifting any trophy will prove the catalyst for brighter days ahead for Munster. With the distinct probability that South Africa’s Blue Bulls, Sharks, Stormers and Lions will be also be looking for Champions Cup access in the not too distant future, securing silverware from 2022 onwards will prove an even bigger challenge for our provinces.
Professional rugby needs something seismic in 2021 to showcase the way forward. A Lions tour has the capacity to do just that.
It is just what international rugby needs now. Nothing in Test rugby compares, even more so with world champions South Africa in the international wilderness since winning the World Cup in such commanding fashion over a year ago.
We could live without the fireworks, the chiming of the bells and even welcome the absence of Auld Lang Syne when ringing in the New Year but the reality check only days into 2021 that the Lions tour is unlikely to proceed is a shattering blow to those who had set their sights on a return to foreign travel with a trip to the rugby heartlands of Cape Town, Durban, Pretoria and Johannesburg.
Confirmation that yet another variant of the Covid-19 virus is rampant in South Africa at present and related government mismanagement surrounding a vaccine program that may not even have begun by the time the tour is set to start has cast a dark shadow on proceedings. Right now, I can’t see the tour going ahead.
The Lions committee have already hinted as much with a formal announcement on the outcome of their deliberations only weeks away. Some have championed the idea of the series going ahead behind closed doors, a prospect that shouldn’t even be considered. The fans are what make modern day Lions tours.
In any event, from a financial perspective and the ticket revenues that accrue to the host nation, the tour couldn’t exist without the fans. The game's finances are in a perilous state at present and every decision taken by the respective home unions, the Lions committee and World Rugby over the next six months will prove crucial to the very survival of the sport as a professional entity.
Suggestions that the Six Nations should be pushed out to late June and early July to fill the void left by a cancelled Lions tour and to enhance the prospect of the tournament being played out in front of full stadia, has already been knocked on the head. Given the recent escalation in the spread of the virus and the realisation that it is going to take longer for the vaccine to reach the wider community, the prospect of full stadia by the summer is unrealistic.
The bottom line is that the unions in all six competing nations must budget with some degree of financial certainty in the short term in order to survive. It’s costing the IRFU €5m a month to keep the professional game afloat at present and that will have to be met from borrowings. That is not sustainable in the long term.
There is no certainty that even if the Six Nations was postponed until September that any meaningful crowds would be able to attend. The best estimates available to the IRFU, even with a reduced distance of 1 metre between spectators from September onwards, is that only 18,000 fans could then attend a game at the Aviva Stadium.
Therefore, unless things deteriorate even further, with a guaranteed revenue stream from broadcasting rights and sponsorship available to each union to set their budgets, the tournament will go ahead as planned in February and March. That money is needed to not only keep the show on the road but to address the serious issue of contract renewals with several high profile Irish players out of contract next June.
So what is going to happen the Lions tour? What about the role it plays in providing a major cash injection for one of the big three Southern Hemisphere countries on rotation every 12 years and in making sure New Zealand, Australia and South Africa help fill our coffers by touring in Europe every November?
At this point, the only thing we can say with certainty is that 2021 is sure to be another turbulent year for the professional game.
