Memories banked, Jack O'Donoghue and Munster turn focus to Connacht 

Munster's Jack O'Donoghue. Pic: Tom O’Hanlon/Inpho

It did not take Munster long to park their celebrations of a famous victory over arch-rivals Leinster but turning the page and figuring out how to deliver a winning performance of a similar standard? That is not so easy.

Clayton McMillan’s squad had every right to savour their 31-14 bonus-point URC victory at Croke Park last Saturday night, a first away success in the fixture since the 2023 semi-finals and in 11 years if you are counting regular season encounters with the Boys in Blue. 

Yet while the win stretched their winning start to the 2025-26 campaign to four-from-four, getting back up for a bid to make it five in-a-row is the biggest challenge facing Munster as they prepare to welcome another provincial rival in Connacht to Thomond Park this Saturday night.

“Ideal having an interpro, isn't it?!” Munster back-rower Jack O’Donoghue said with a chuckle at the prospect of back-to-back derby matches.

“You have to enjoy those weekends because myself personally, I'm in my 11th season now and I haven't had many days like that, like beating Leinster away from home. So it was something over the weekend you absolutely enjoyed. You cherish that, you bank the memories.

“But then we came in here on Monday and that was it, we reviewed it like we normally would, like it wasn't anything special, we didn't pat ourselves on the back that that's job done. It was flipping the focus to Connacht and it's the exact same when you lose.

“You don't dwell on a loss too long because you have to turn the page and that's the beauty of Clayton, he's brilliant at that. And while there are aspects of the game that were really good, we still look at the game as a whole and saw areas where we let Leinster into the game too easily.

“That's something that we'll have to be putting right coming into this weekend because Connacht will have seen that and they're going to think that's where we can exploit Munster.

“And where Connacht are is where. nearly, we were against Leinster so they're coming down to Thomond Park now trying to upset our party.” 

The Waterford forward has played a major part in Munster’s strong start to the season, but thoughts of a route back into a green jersey have long been parked, even with an Ireland A squad set to face Spain in Leganes next month set to be announced shortly. 

His two Test appearances came against Canada and Japan in 2016 and 2017 and not even uncapped team-mate Tom Farrell’s belated call-up to Andy Farrell’s squad for November can persuade him he is in line for an international renaissance.

“I'm 31 years of age! I don't think I'm going on the Ireland A squad,” O’Donoghue said.

“No, look that's back there. Do you know what I mean? I think where I'm at in my time, my energy and stuff and where it needs to be is here in Munster and I'd be delighted for lads that go away on tour. 

"Delighted for Tom Farrell, someone who massively deserves to be in an Ireland squad and to get that recognition is huge and there'll be a number of lads I'm sure, picked for the Ireland A squad and I'd be delighted for them.

“Not belittling anything, I think when you're looking at a World Cup cycle and you're looking at players, I don't know if I'm going to be in that mixer and I'm okay with that.

“That's something that was probably really tough for me to say but it allows you then to play with a freedom with your club and when there's a squad announcement you're not unbelievably you're not disappointed your head doesn't drop, your form doesn't drop and that's something I found years ago when you're in and out of squads that it was a rollercoaster.

“It was a mental rollercoaster and you know you could be playing unbelievably well and you don't get picked and then all of a sudden your head goes down and your form goes down and you find yourself out of your provincial squad and, you know, you're almost saying well that's why you didn't get picked.

“But for me once you are able to park that, because that's completely out of my control, what I can control is what I do in the 80 minutes for Munster here on the weekend and I'm really enjoying doing that.”