Donal Lenihan: Munster rugby needs to be very careful not to bite the hand that feeds it

The province should test Scott Robertson's stated ambition to coach in Europe. Meanwhile, at club level, the grassroots is growing increasingly frustrated

General view from inside the stadium ahead of a recent Heineken Champions Cup match at Thomond Park. Picture: Brian Lawless

It’s difficult to get your head around what exactly is going on in Munster rugby these days. My overriding sense is of a province bouncing from one crisis to another across both the professional and amateur arm of the game.

The feelgood factor from the bonus-point win over Wasps in the opening round of the Heineken Champions Cup, despite having 34 players ruled out of contention, was eroded within 48 hours with the news that Johann van Graan was walking away from Munster and heading to Bath.

Van Graan is an honest and decent man, has a good rapport with the players and, while he did a competent job in maintaining Munster’s competitiveness, he failed (so far) to breach the semi-final barrier in the two major competitions, which has proved insurmountable for over a decade now.

The fact that Munster failed to fire a shot in last season’s Guinness Pro14 final against Leinster at the RDS was a major disappointment in itself, but it was the way they went about their business that day that proved even more of a let-down. Van Graan’s greatest contribution to the cause to date was in attracting world-class signings in Damien de Allende and RG Snyman to the province.

The misfortune surrounding Snyman’s injury travails was a huge blow to Van Graan’s overall plan and, on the back of his departure, there is now serious concerns that both high profile Springboks may choose to move on when their contracts expire at the end of the season. Without those marquee signings, Munster have even less chance of closing the gap on Europe’s elite.

Munster are now looking for a fifth head coach in 10 years. Even more concerning is the fact that Rassie Erasmus, Jacques Nienaber, Felix Jones, Jerry Flannery, Stephen Larkham, and Van Graan have all chosen to leave at a time when they were offered, or about to be offered, a contract extension.

The fact that Erasmus, Nienaber, Jones, and Flannery have all achieved notable success since moving on only serves to highlight what might have been, with Erasmus’s return of 29 wins from his 32 games in charge a clear indication of the direction Munster was heading on his watch.

For some, Munster prove no more than a stepping stone, a means to an end. Then again, we shouldn’t be surprised by that. It’s the nature of professional sport. To be fair, the Munster Professional Board have not been found wanting in attracting the very best players and coaches to the province in recent years when one also adds Graham Rowntree to the mix.

The board now has to step up again in attracting a premium candidate to the role of head coach. On that front, I would leave no stone unturned in my pursuit of Crusaders coach Scott Robertson who has indicated a desire to, someday, coach in Europe. Munster must now test that ambition.

While Robertson has serious aspirations to coach the All Blacks after losing out to Ian Foster last time out, the fact that Joe Schmidt has now joined their management ticket could yet prove the first step towards the former Irish coach eventually replacing Foster. Robertson’s time will come but, with Schmidt now in the picture, he may be required to wait a bit longer, hence a window of opportunity for Munster.

The professional board must first decide what hierarchical system is best designed to provide the long-term stability that’s clearly missing at present. That may well revolve around the appointment of a Director of Rugby at the head of the pyramid. If that’s the chosen route then Declan Kidney, who still has much to offer, comes into the picture in that role. One could also build a succession plan around Robertson’s appointment with Ronan O’Gara featuring in that longer-term vision. The current La Rochelle coach has pinned his colours to France’s Atlantic coast until 2024, but with someone like Robertson setting the coaching standard, he may be enticed back in time.

O’Gara is astute enough to recognise that, under the current rugby structure within the province, this isn’t the time to put your head on the coaching block. Munster have big decisions to make between now and the end of the season. We await with great interest to see in which direction Munster travel next.

On the amateur front, things are far from plain sailing either with serious discontent brewing across a range of issues for the constituent clubs, at both junior and senior level, within the province.

The further deterioration in relations between the branch and the referees association in south Munster is highlighted by the fact that, due to the failure to even reach the point where an independent mediator acceptable to both parties can be appointed, the referees feel they have been left with no choice but to withdraw their services from January onwards.

This will have a devastating effect on club and schools rugby activities in the southern half of the province but could also impact on the quality of officials available for AIL games which, in turn, has implications for the IRFU who run the league.

Where is Munster CEO Ian Flanagan in all of this? Since his appointment, he has shown a marked disinterest in club rugby, despite the key role it plays in nurturing players for the province’s academy, as evidenced by those ready to step up to the mark against Wasps recently. Despite efforts to reach out to him, Flanagan has made no effort to engage with responsible figures in the club game.

At the branch AGM last August he addressed club delegates over Zoom, informing all how, in his opinion, there was a great appetite for competitive club rugby to commence for the forthcoming season, hardly a ground-breaking statement given the absence of any competitive action in the year to that point.

On the back of that statement, imagine the shock on my return from the Lions tour of South Africa in August to discover that a fixture list for Charity Cup and Munster Senior Cup action hadn’t yet been established with less than three weeks to go before the start of the season.

This was due to a bizarre insistence in running the cancelled Munster Senior Cup programme from the previous season, the only one of the four provinces to go down that route. With all rugby competitions cancelled mid-stream, including all five divisions of the AIL, what was that about?

We were told the decision to finish the campaign was a mark of respect to the sponsors Bank of Ireland who, coincidentally, also sponsor the other three provinces. It didn’t do anything for the long history of this great competition, or indeed for Bank of Ireland, that only two of the four semi-finalists felt in a position to play at that level after such a long lay-off.

The most satisfying aspect of Munster’s great win over Wasps was the contribution made by a cohort of young players who came through the schools and club system. While a number of them have been exposed to the academy and the good work been done by the coaches at that level, their impact on the day, in the majority of cases, was achieved on the back of the recent game time received with their clubs at AIL level.

Without that, they would have been nowhere near ready to contribute as positively as they did. Munster rugby needs to be very careful not to bite the hand that feeds it. Our system and heritage are different to the model that has worked so well for Leinster, where a plentiful supply of quality schoolboys offer themselves for academy places every season.

Leinster’s issue is who to leave out of their annual academy intake, Munster’s more of a case of who is ready for inclusion. We should not be duped into slavishly following the same model in Munster — rather tweak it to identify what works best for our emerging players.

For me, that entails working closer with the AIL clubs something, to be fair, new academy head coach Ian Costelloe appears more than willing to do. I have no doubt Munster will accelerate the development of our young players by going down that route.

There are so many good people involved in the running of the game in Munster, but one of their most dedicated diehards confessed to me recently that, after a decade of incredible commitment to the cause, he’s never felt more frustrated with the machinations of the Munster branch, with a clear divide opening up between north and south, something the referees dispute has further highlighted.

It also begs the question: Why, in contrast to Leinster, Connacht and Ulster, do we even have two such separate entities within the province?