“If someone’s unhappy he’s not playing or whatever, if he’s sulking . . . that’s frowned upon”
HE MADE 102 appearances in Munster red, so you can extrapolate Jason Holland’s career tackle count from that. Little wonder, then, that he doesn’t blink at your first effort: have Munster drifted away from that blue-collar work ethic that established their credentials in the last decade or so?
“It’s a tough one. I don’t think we ever really went away from that, though I can see how people would have the opinion that we did. But even if we did – without knowing it – it’d be in our minds that couldn’t continue. You have to be hard-nosed and physical to play winning rugby, no matter what happens with new rules and so on. You can’t take away the hard approach. I don’t know if we left that behind for a while but if we did we’ve certainly gone back to it.”
The graduation from embittered outsiders to European aristocracy plays its part, as the Munster backs coach acknowledges. You can’t say you’re disrespected quite as easily when you’ve pocketed two Heineken Cups.
He’s lived in Ireland since November 1998, apart from a brief spell back home in New Zealand, which gives him a fair vantage point when it comes to the development of the Heineken Cup.
“I think maybe the French clubs taking it that much more seriously, without saying that they didn’t back when the competition started, has been the big change. The year after I came over Ulster won the competition, and there was a bit of a fuss about the English teams not participating, but since then the English and French teams have become more interested. The other thing is that international players see it as a stepping stone from the Magners or the Premiership – the pace, the intensity go up a little, so it fills a little gap between Top 14, the Premiership and the Magners and international games.”
With that in mind, it can set his teeth on edge to see the attitude of some old pals. “It’s hugely frustrating for me to talk to mates at home about the Heineken Cup. These are guys who don’t even mean to have a go, but you can see by their attitude that they feel the Heineken Cup isn’t near the standard of the Super 14. It’s different, but there’d be good games between the top sides here and top sides there. I find that frustrating, the attitude people there can have towards rugby here, and even when Ireland play New Zealand I feel that. I think that over the last few years they’ve been as good as the All Blacks, or not far off it. Take the tour that’s just gone, and Jamie Heaslip’s sending-off, or Dunedin in 2002, when Ireland lost narrowly.
“But a lot of New Zealanders would have that attitude towards rugby here, they wouldn’t appreciate it. Obviously there’s a difference between a battle here in December when the weather’s terrible, and a Super 14 game in January in New Zealand, when it’s cooking-hot and a hard ground.
“But I genuinely think there’d be good games between the top club sides in Europe and New Zealand.”
Talk of top club sides brings us neatly to the weekend past. Last Saturday night saw Munster’s fifth consecutive defeat at the hands of Leinster. Holland doesn’t bother to hide the pain.
“We’ve parked the Leinster thing now, but I don’t know if it’s just me personally, the last couple of times, coming out of Dublin having lost to Leinster have been among the worst in my career. Driving away in the bus from the Aviva on Saturday having lost five times was hugely disappointing.
“Everybody in the squad was grumpy for 24 hours, but we had the review on Monday. We were quite harsh on each other but the point was made that that’s gone, we have to be ready for London Irish, and training’s gone very well since then.
“There’s no getting away from it, there’s no point in pretending it doesn’t hurt, losing to those guys, but I’m happy enough that we’ve parked it.”
Given the short turnaround, he agrees there’s a balance to be struck between addressing problems from one weekend while remaining positive about the next.
“There’s a balance you have to achieve in reviewing things, and one positive with reviewing the Leinster game was that we’ll face similar threats against London Irish – simple things, like giving them the ball with their back three set on the halfway line.
“We’ve talked about not doing that, so those are things you can turn around when reviewing – ‘these are things we can’t allow to happen’ – rather than being negative.
“One thing I felt with Leinster was a little sense that we were playing not to lose rather than playing to win, which is something we don’t plan on doing again.
“There were things that we were negative about last weekend and to be honest that can be put down to the occasion, to worrying about losing five in-a-row rather than thinking ‘right, we’re going to beat Leinster’.
“You have to address things, you can’t turn a blind eye to problems, but professional players will accept criticism in front of other players. There’s no sulking or anything like that, they’ll just stand up and say, ‘I’ll fix that’.”
It’s part of the pro game outsiders aren’t familiar with: the importance of attitude to the team as a whole.
“True, it’s something people don’t realise about professional sport, but there are little things you can do to help it.
“For instance, when it comes to selection it’s important a guy knows before the next session that he’s not playing on the team, because then he has 12 hours or so beforehand to deal with it.
“If someone’s unhappy that he’s not playing or whatever, if he’s sulking . . . that’s frowned upon. It’s a matter of respect for your fellow players as well, because you’re putting yourself before the team, but in fairness, we’ve got a good ethos in that respect, you wouldn’t get that happening.
“I think players don’t sulk because they don’t want to lose the respect of their fellow players, which is a good way to be.”
ON the specifics, Holland is frank but optimistic. The option-taking can improve. Players are missing, but others are putting their hands up.
“I felt we’d done well early in the season, we’d balanced the hard edge on one hand and also having more options in attack, something we’re trying to develop – so you can be direct but you also have guys pulling into wider channels, dragging defenders out, as well.
“We were making inroads with that, but last week we went back to kicking the ball because we didn’t have options.
“It’d be great to have everybody back but we’ve got to get on with what we’ve got. Earlsy should be back this weekend, which is great, but Paul (O’Connell) has only played about four games in two years, so we’re used to playing without him.
“We’ve got more depth than we’ve had in a long while, and the international players know there are no guarantees about their places. There’s real competition. The Peter O’Mahonys, the JJ Hanrahans, they’re coming through. It’s looking a lot healthier.”
So is the attitude. After all this time, Holland could see early this week that was in place.
“There’ll be an edge. There always is.
“You know it’s a Heineken Cup week when you turn up for training on Monday. It’s a massive game for us but the boys are ready.”
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