Payne: sideline strain every bit as intense

MUNSTER team manager and former player Shaun Payne admits matchdays can be torture, and he often wishes he was back on the pitch to allow him release some of the nervous tension that automatically occurs during big games.

Payne might look the picture of calm, but when Munster take on Northampton in tomorrow’s Heineken Cup quarter-final at Thomond Park, he will be going through his own hell.

It will be a different type of pressure to when he was a player, but no less taxing, he says. “When I was playing, I would always get a lot more nervous before a game. Those nerves would centre on a worry about my personal performance. It got especially bad for the bigger games; sometimes the nerves would start three days out and build up right to the moments before the game.

“As a manager, especially before the really big games, it is much the same during the 80 minutes, but not quite as intense in the build-up because you’re actually keeping yourself occupied in different ways.

“Yet, as a manager, during a game, I do have my moments. It’s hard to describe, really, you have no release for all that nervous energy so there is a huge build up of nerves and tension.

“That becomes more apparent just before and during the game because there is no way of releasing that energy like the players can. When I was on the field, once you get through the warm-up and then get onto the pitch, you have this physical release for all the energy built up over a few days.

“As part of the management team, I find there is no way I can get the physical release to all that energy and it’s hard; you’re bottling it all the time and I still find it quite tough.”

Sometimes, Payne admits to being a bad spectator even though he wouldn’t be noted for losing the cool on the touchline or stands. The subject of his aggression wouldn’t really be towards the Munster players. Sometimes, he would direct his aggression at the referee, but most likely at the fourth official. “Sometimes the fourth official gets a bit of my mind but, being realistic, he’s the only person that helps me in terms of getting something off my chest,” he said.

Payne’s love affair with Munster began in 2003 when he moved to Limerick from Swansea. Five seasons later he was the proud holder of two Heineken Cup medals and with enough off-field reputation to be considered as successor to Jerry Holland as Munster team manager.

Clearly, Munster didn’t want to lose him and Holland, who was ready to move away, actually agreed to help him through his first year in a joint player/management role.

Management was a new challenge, but one he has clearly warmed to and it delights him his CV is now seriously embellished after a playing career that many would be envious of.

“It was a learning process. I had never been involved in managing a team before and there’s a lot more to it than one would think. You are looking at interaction between players and coaching staff and on to dealing with the Munster Branch, IRFU, Magners League and ERC.

“At all levels of Munster rugby you touch, you want to make sure the operation is right,” he said.

Those who suggest current professional players might be spoiled won’t get any support from Payne. He said: “Spoiling is not an issue. Sure, the players do get a lot done for them, but rightly so. There is a reason for that because the players’ job is to concentrate on the game, to train for that and to get in the best possible preparation for games.

“If the players have to start worrying about training, nutrition and travel, amongst a wide range of other things, then they cannot possibly focus on training and getting prepared. They can’t focus on the job as professionals and that is, after all, what these guys are hired to do, to play and to perform. Our job is to ensure that they can do that to the best of their ability by not having any obvious distractions.”

Having been there and done that, Payne is in no mood to either build up Munster’s hopes of victory tomorrow or tear them down. Being beaten by Leinster at Thomond Park last week means nothing, he believes, in the overall context of the challenge ahead.

A realist to the core, he acknowledged form hasn’t necessarily set the world alight for Munster supporters. Neither has it been a perfect build-up for management, coaching staff or the players for that matter.

But he did make one telling observation as he warned of the danger posed from the Northampton camp, describing the front-runners for the Guinness Premiership title as “a superb side”.

“I would say we are in a very good place right now. We are in the Heineken Cup quarter-final with a home fixture and we are also in with a very good chance of making the semi-finals of the Magners League, possibly with a reasonable chance of getting a home semi-final. I think we will be judged by what happens at the end of the season.”