Ian Mallon: How Munster managed van Graan's mid-season bombshell

In a critical year where stability was key, the Thomond Park hierarchy held their nerve and turned a potentially major negative into a positive for the future on and off the field

That way is out: Munster head coach Johann van Graan before the United Rugby Championship Quarter-Final match between Ulster and Munster at Kingspan Stadium in Belfast. Pic: Ramsey Cardy/Sportsfile

FOR any front office at a major sports organisation – even one with a history of winning - success can also be measured without trophies.

It’s not something that the supporters or some commercial stakeholders often appreciate, but the bottom line will and must always rule.

In a candid end-of-season assessment of the business performance at Munster Rugby, Chief Operating Officer Philip Quinn told The Pitch that while the season ended “disappointingly” the overall picture has been strong.

“We are judged on our success, was it a successful season? We believe it was a positive season with so many young players coming through and a lot of positive activity off the pitch,” explains Philip Quinn. “We finished very disappointingly - Toulouse was a high point despite the result - Leinster and Ulster after that were definite low points.

“So if you’re to judge on just where we finished at the end you’d say ‘No, we wouldn’t see it as positive', but there were points in the season where there were definitely positive signs.” 

The most remarkable outcome from the season at the business end is the financial situation that Munster have worked themselves towards. Despite the pandemic, the club is aiming to ‘break even’ by 2023, from a position of deficit throughout and before Covid.

Another strong performance came with Munster’s operational handling of the Johann van Graan exit announcement mid-season, a situation which could have been catastrophic right across the organisation.

Up to then, as the impacts of Covid continued to decimate Munster’s annual turnover – average €13-15m and matchday revenue of up to €5m - the ’21-’22 season was about survival.

Then in December, van Graan announced his plans to leave and join Bath at the end of the playing year, providing a massive challenge for CEO Ian Flanagan and the entire organisation.

An immediate decision had to be made on whether Munster should stick or twist, in the short-term, with their wantaway coach. They decided to stick, a decision which was both strategic and stabilising, when the temptation might have been to start over.

For the board of Munster Rugby the idea of parting company there and then was tempting, but never really an option, given the time involved in identifying a new head coach - nor was it ever going to be realistic to bring in a temporary team.

“One of the biggest worries we had around player contracting was that a new head coach would not have any input into the composition of the squad for the following season as contracting is completed earlier in the year,” continued Quinn.

“We couldn’t put our contract negotiations on hold until the outcome of the head coach (appointment) process because everyone’s going to be finished and gone off the market at that stage.” 

Rather than allow van Graan retain sole responsibility for the decision-making around players, Quinn and others decided to widen that process to include others who would remain at the club after the South African’s departure.

“Our normal contracting process is a collaborative method involving our head coach and our professional game board, with the IRFU signing off on all contracts. When Johann handed in his notice, these discussions were widened to include the full coaching team. 

“As a result we had Graham (Rowntree) in the decisions, Ian Costello as head of the Academy and others, so all of the decisions were made on a consensus-based approach.” 

With Rowntree subsequently appointed as head coach, Munster now has a leader in place who is in a unique position of having “had an input in every single decision for his first season” before taking up the reigns.

Away from the HR side of the business, Munster continued not just to look to get back to a fully operational financial condition, stabilising the business and being game-ready once matchday revenues returned and overall turnover started to increase.

Legacy and stadium debt, for obvious reasons, were put on the back burner during Covid and managing that debt is now a key priority.

Munster has just €6.5m left on a €42m loan for Thomond Park, and ongoing redevelopment at Musgrave Park has shown some highly interesting outcomes which go some way to answering a favoured gripe by some.

“Some people question the cost effectiveness of having two stadia and whether this has a negative effect on us,” Quinn explains. “It’s something that couldn’t be further from the truth. We are generating significant income out of Musgrave Park with all of the additional events being hosted in the stadium.

“Musgrave, under our Stadium Manager Ian Dunne, has gone from strength to strength since its redevelopment whereby it’s generating a cashflow surplus every year which comes back into the pot.” 

Munster’s sustainability strategy continues apace as one of the only Irish sports organisation to sign up for the United Nations Sports for Climate Action framework, with Musgrave Park this week undergoing installation of LED floodlights (supported by energy partner Pinergy).

A new auto sponsor will soon enter the fray, providing a fleet of 25 cars of which an initial 50 per cent will be electric.

Sustainability is also an area that makes Munster more attractive to big corporates, all of whom now have environmentally-sensitive commercial strategy.

“When Dave Kavanagh our Head of Commercial or Ian Flannagan our CEO is talking to potential new sponsors they’re asking ‘What are you doing in this space’, so straight away we’re on the front foot – ‘Yes, we’re doing lots of things’.” 

An early bath for referee abuse report?

THE IRFU has supported an Oireachtas Joint-Committee report which recommends measures to eradicate abuse of referees and officials from sport, while the GAA is still considering the recently-published proposals.

The FAI, the organisation at the centre of the original issue – when the Dublin District Schoolboy League cancelled games in solidarity with abused referees - has so far refused to comment on the proposals by the cross-party committee for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Media and Sport.

Last week the Oireachtas working group recommended that Sport Ireland impose a measurement system – Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) – to measure the management of how abuse is handled by sports bodies.

Committee member Imelda Munster said that the recommendations would mean that NGBs would no longer be “allowed to turn a blind eye” to an area which now includes behaviour towards players on the pitch and online.

The Department of Sport said that Minister of Sport Jack Chambers and the Department “welcome the Committee’s examination of this area of sport”.

However, it added that “the primary responsibility for ensuring a respectful and disciplined environment rests with individual participants and their NGBs”, although it’s not clear if it will reject the KPI model recommended by the committee.

“The Department will of course consider the Committee's recommendations, in conjunction with Sport Ireland,” it ended its short statement to The Pitch.

Sport Ireland denied that the Oireachtas report meant that it would take a central role in the disciplinary process, despite the committee urging it to oversee a measurement of the administration and “handling of reported instances of abuse” by NGBs.

“In relation to the recommendations in the report, we will discuss with the Department the recommendations relevant to Sport Ireland as part of our normal ongoing engagement.” 

The most positive reaction to the Joint Committee comes from the IRFU.

“All those involved in Irish Rugby sign up to the Spirt of Rugby charter which includes practical educational programmes that embody and promote the core values of the game – Respect, Inclusivity, Integrity, Fun and Excellence,” it said in a statement.

“From our initial read of the report we believe a number of the measures have been considered and initiated within the organisation.

“However, we will review the report in detail and are happy to assist in, or develop any, programme, in conjunction with Sport Ireland or others, that promote core values within sport.” 

Senior sources across sport and politics have called the Joint Committee’s recommendations as “unworkable” with one senior source in a sports organisation describing them as “off the charts”, by threatening NGBs with funding cuts.

What happens next will prove extremely difficult for all sides. If the KPI recommendations are not accepted by the Department of Sport and Sport Ireland, the very credibility of the committee is called into question.

If the recommendations are adopted, then how will Sport Ireland oversee the establishment of a KPI-linked table which highlights the best performers and the biggest sinners when it comes to the disciplinary process? And how will those deemed to be the biggest offenders react to being monitored by a statutory body?

That will be the most fascinating piece of what is looking more like an ill thought-out Oireachtas report.