Munster go native, Eddie goes south
Sadly, not yet.
Racing Metro’s season may be over, but school’s still on in Paris. And our smallest, Max, has no passport. Life’s little creases.
As soon as the Top 14 final is done and dusted tomorrow week, Racing move on their targeted acquisitions for next season. This is a 36-month project — only then do I expect us to be reaching the peak of our powers.
I was thinking what kind of timeframe Axel Foley is setting for his new management in terms of European success. That’s the benchmark Munster should, and will, always be measured by. Garrett Fitzgerald’s comments about Foley’s new backroom team this week were interesting.
After weighing up what was available in the marketplace at this moment in time, Munster have taken the decision to go native. Not just all-Irish. All-Munster. The world has been scouted and this is how they are moving forward — Axel, Ian Costello, Mick O’Driscoll, Jerry Flannery and Brian Walsh.
Supporters have to back that now. We’re all experts afterwards, there are no guarantees.
Incorrect! There are some guarantees with this package. They will bring excitement, tradition, honesty. work ethic and smarts to the table. Axel will hold onto what worked from Rob Penney’s regime and feed that into his own game-plan. You can be sure there were positives to take from the last two years; don’t let anyone say there hasn’t been progress, there has. To suggest otherwise is churlish.
The dynamism and energy within that management group will work really well next season. Jerry Flannery is a serious operator, a winner, a Ronseal who does exactly what it says on the tin. He will be very effective in debating things out in the open. An independent thinker. He never had any problem taking on Paulie in training or in the dressing room when he felt it appropriate. That’s crucial. He’ll also bring massive passion to the idea of representing Munster because he got that himself out of playing for the province. On two occasions, once with Ireland, another time before the 2013 Heineken Cup quarter-final away to Harlequins, he presented the jerseys to the players and addressed the squad. What it all meant to him was very evident both times.
His expertise and experience working with Arsenal this past season suggests he is going to have a far bigger role than scrum coach. He excels in the strength and conditioning area, but also in leadership and motivation. He was also the best thrower in the world, so essentially he’s a skills coach, but he’ll bring so much more to the table than that. For starters, he brings a European Cup-winning mentality from 2006 and ’08 into a dressing room of contenders. That is key.
The new backs coach, Brian Walsh, is a deep thinker on the game. When he does talk, it’s very worthwhile. He mentored me at Constitution so I know him well enough to say he is now fulfilling a lifetime ambition that he must have thought had passed him by. I am absolutely thrilled for him. He was a class 13 himself, and a disciple of the Villepreux style of coaching. He understands the game as an outside back really well, and will have some great ideas for the attacking game. They will be left-field, but they will be brilliant for Munster’s combination of backs.
And that word, combination, keeps coming up in my mind. A harmonious management team is something rarely spoken about in public, but everyone within the playing group is aware of its importance. The combination of Axel, Micko, Cossie, Flannery, and Squeaks (Brian Walsh) has a good range of abilities about it. The lack of European coaching experience is self-evident but not something that will undermine the project. Ian Costello, out of UL Bohs, will have responsibility for defence, but he’d have a good brain for attack and Axel is not the type of coach to box off people into particular domains. If you have an energetic dynamo in your management group, these ideas will be shared. Hopefully that will happen in Munster.
There was a moment when Eddie O’Sullivan might have been part of the new Munster set-up, but it would appear he preferred the head coach offering from Biarritz to that of an assistant at home. Gutsy call. I can understand that, knowing Eddie,because he has always been his own man. Biarritz have just been relegated from the Top 14 to the Pro D2, an absolute dog of a league to get out of.
My experiences of Eddie were always positive. In the three years before 2008, we won 11 of 15 games in the Six Nations. Eventually it clicks and in the Grand Slam year of ’09, we won all five, but a lot of the ground work was done by Eddie. He is an extremely capable technician and game strategist, and has a lot of good ideas.
The biggest challenge he will face will be less about strategy and more about communication. To my knowledge, he doesn’t speak French to any significant degree. Rugby is a very simple game when you’re communicating in your native tongue, but when you’re trying to express views and convey strategies in a foreign language, it’s not as easy as you think.
It’s not what you say, but how you say it. If you get one word arseways in French, it loses its effect and your coaching powers are diminished as a result. Biarritz will be prize meat in the Pro D2, a potential scalp for everyone.
We’ll chat soon about it. I owe him a phone call.
