Ronan O'Gara: Staring into Munster's future at 4am
NEW MUNSTER? Scrum half Craig Casey pictured with Ronan O'Gara's two sons, Zac (left) and Max during Munster's pre-season camp and friendly game in La Rochelle. O'Gara's older twins, Rua and Molly turn 18 this weekend.
NOW, where were we? I must tell you first about the night we had after Munster were here playing La Rochelle in a pre-season friendly at the end of August.
I’d had a few bits of chat here and there with the Munster lads over the course of the week they spent in France but as is often the case, the most enlightening and enriching conversations came in the haze of the early hours Saturday morning at Uini Atonio’s restaurant on Ile de Ré.
After the game, Denis Leamy, myself, Jess and at least 15 of the Munster lads went to Uini’s til about four in the morning. After that we went to my gaff til 7am and the last I recall, my daughter Molly was ferrying pods of them back to their hotel for breakfast in our van. Quite the image.
This all felt different, nice different, and extraordinary, but in some ways so completely normal. It was like being transported back, playing with my team and our people. The drink helped strip away the age gap and one thing was immediately apparent: all these Munster lads are just crying out for is a shot of confidence and leadership. Everyone is telling them they are shite, that it’s a basket case club.
But when you talk to them on a human level it felt absolutely brilliant. Jess and I were buzzing for the entire weekend after listening and being stimulated by Munster’s young lads. Just meeting so many sound people from home. I was looking around, and on one side of me is Woodie’s two young fellas, over there is Frankie Sheahan’s nephew and Paul O'Connell's nephew Evan. All of a sudden the world revolved around Munster rugby. JJ Hanrahan, that Alex Nankivill lad also seems a really good sort, Diarmuid Barron, ditto the new signing from Connacht, Jack Aungier.
This was me, these were my neighbours, tightly bunched for a glorious night a thousand miles from home. Whether it’s emigrants or ex-patriates, we’ve all had those special nights. It was so powerful. Jess felt the same, it just felt like a family.
There’s a lot of blame around the place in Munster these days, folk coming and going, and it’s easy when lads are playing duck and cover for the players to get it in the ear. But who’s selling the dream to these guys? They can get there, but it will take a lot of perseverance. What I met that night were not just good solid characters, but some serious units, as in impressive specimens who need good coaching, good direction and a healthy dose of confidence.
I’m not going to lie, it stirred pangs of nostalgia in us both. The older you get, the more you drift away from the qualities that shaped you and that isn’t a good thing. That night was a healthy reminder of the intangibles that has made Munster what it was and can be again.
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THIS IS ALL by way of backdrop, and set against the current administrative and corporate turmoil in the province, it at least offers a perspective that is not heavy with doom and gloom. There is so much to be going on with in my waking hours with La Rochelle, that the state of Munster often feels like an abstract, until such time you are looking at its future at four o’clock in the morning.
With the history of Munster, of Thomond Park and the brand, I don’t think a reboot is necessarily out of reach. Maybe it’s cock-eyed optimism. I’ve said here before about big brands failing and falling, but the edifice still stands in Munster, even if the plaster is cracked. With a charismatic Pied Piper like a Clohessy, Galwey, Paul O’Connell or Keith Wood involved, they could provide the energy and the cachet for Munster folk to rally around. I really think folk are waiting for someone to step up. The mistake would be putting anyone of that ilk into a position they are not qualified to do, and expect a magic carpet to take flight. In the humourless world of professional sport, romance won’t be enough. There were easy lines about Peter O’Mahony having an input but he’s a recent ex player with his head spinning, dealing with retirement, a new business, a new book after a fantastic career, but with respect he has little knowledge about the business side of the sport.
A local voice is important, and Avan Lee the interim CEO, appears to already have a decent appreciation of that fact, but if I am looking for the best CEO for Munster as a business and a sporting entity right now, I’m not majoring on his accent. When I saw the appointment of the ex-Hurricanes CEO, I thought of my time with the Crusaders, an outsider thrown into a storied New Zealand rugby institution. I don’t think it hampered my ability to make a positive difference. Diversity of thought is good too.
However, Lee’s No 2, whoever that may be in the shake up and fallout from the governance review, needs to be a local wing man or women whose eyes and ears can scan the terrain and spot the landmines as well as the opportunities. And he must be made of the right stuff.
There is a road to go. A 26-22 win over the Bulls offered ‘a chink of light’, they’re saying. Jeez, that’s the absolute minimum with Munster. You can be as good a coach as is out there, but if you don’t have the right cattle, it’s seldom going to work out. Munster still needs to invest in the right players, and for that they need to find private money. I’m told it’s there in the right circumstances, because you put two or three X factor players into that back line and two beefy lads up front, and you’d have a seriously competitive squad.
Which comes first, the chicken or the egg? Is there harmony in the province? Are the players suitably fixated on Munster, first and foremost? Around the time I retired in 2013, Joe Schmidt took over as Ireland head coach and he turned heads, no donbt about that. As Leinster began to wheel the scrum, a lot of other lads threw their lot in with Ireland more than Munster. The terms of engagement changed. They were on board with the Schmidt ‘Team Ireland’ mantra that has continued, as a positive, under Andy Farrell. And that sated a need to be part of a driven, competitive environment. This is your new club, reckoned Joe, don’t be trying to serve two mistresses.
Before all that, it was so good for Munster that we often had the bulk of the front eight and the half backs starting in green too. But the next wave saw better times with Ireland. Conor Murray, Peter O’Mahony et al had brilliant times in green but unfortunately they never really got a sniff of a European or Champions Cup. Munster 1 and Ireland 2 was flipped on its head and that’s a credit to Schmidt and Farrell, and their coaching acumen, that it was turned. Team Ireland assumed primacy.
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In Limerick, meanwhile, a new phenomenon was emerging. I was as enthralled as anyone watching the skill level and athleticism of the Limerick hurlers from 2018 on. Byrnes. Hannon. Hayes. Hegarty. Gillane. They all played with a massive conviction and will, possessed almost. They had it all: game plan, execution, smarts, athletes. Drive. It was very easy to hitch your wagon to that. Sport is an elixir. The crowd goes to whatever is hot in town.
We tend to eat our own down south. Cork and Limerick fell out. That’s the ominous faultline because Munster was always greater than the sum of its parts. It has that belligerence, that stupendous chip on the shoulder where my brother had my back irrespective. And then… People assumed Garret Fitzgerald was actually part of the furniture, there forever to break our fall, with Gerry Holland, Pat Geraghty, Donal Lenihan was the Ireland manager. A disillusionment crept in, that the spell was broken, we wondered how and why.
We even loved the Cork-Limerick thing at the beginning, because it was new, we had a freshness. We went up the road through Mitchelstown, and the craic and the coffees made it so enjoyable. We were young bucks living the dream, but that would inevitably wear off and proprietorial interests increased.
That 2023 URC title was a magnificent achievement under Graham Rowntree, and we thought something might fire off that but between Axel and the current incumbent, there’s been five head coaches in a decade. It’s hard to build on the foundations with that.
Now, Ian Flanagan will leave the CEO’s position later this month and Aran Lee becomes responsible for the business side and the finance and ponying up with budget for the marquee signing. Don’t make Ian Flanagan the solitary scapegoat. He doesn’t scrum or kick goals. All these environments look harmonious when you are performing on the pitch, but when that isn’t happening, everything gets distorted.
Little wonder the appetite for outside investment has been poor, because Munster’s perceived as damaged goods at the minute - that’s not a hard luck story, that’s the reality of under-achievement. As the performance and win against the Bulls indicated, it mightn’t take a whole lot to get everyone pushing the boulder back up the hill together.
But the last word is the critical one: together.
