Penney hits the ground running with Reds

If first impressions count, then new Munster rugby coach Rob Penney got off to a flyer yesterday at his official unveiling, apologising to the assembled hacks for arriving a few minutes late.

In the parallel universe of appointments with sportspeople, a zone which defies Einstein’s theories and where anything within 45 minutes of the original agreed meeting time is regarded as staunch punctuality, this was an unnerving development. What’s more, Penney actually added a quick explanation for his tardiness.

This kind of normality can’t last, surely? Penney may not have picked up much Irish in his time here yet, but here’s a proverb he embodied in Cork Institute of Technology: tús maith leath na hoibre.

The new man’s flat vowels and Colin Meads-type haircut proclaims his nationality as starkly as a silver fern across the chest, and he was direct and to the point in his comments. He immediately referenced the 1978 Munster-New Zealand game to establish his awareness of the heritage and history associated with his new post and we were off.

(As we mention haircuts, Penney’s assistant Simon Mannix, newly arrived from Racing Metro, took the honours with a thatch reminiscent of Patrick Swayze as Bodie in Point Break. Niall O’Donovan, returning as manager, sported a far more conservative do. Must do better, Niall.)

There were some delicately phrased questions about Munster’s recent disappointments in the Heineken Cup, and the potential impact that some of the recent Academy graduates might have with the senior side.

Penney was able to cite a couple of the admissions to the Canterbury Academy when he was in charge of that operation: Richie McCaw and Dan Carter, and rugby supporters in the southern half of the country will be hoping his Midas touch hasn’t deserted him.

It wasn’t all bromides from the new man, mind you. Having players centrally contracted to the IRFU has been widely acknowledged as being critical to the recent successes of Irish rugby, and Penney pointed out that he’d had experience of a similar arrangement, with Canterbury and the All Blacks sharing players.

Controlling the amount of games that international players participate in is something that’s bound to be a source of creative tension from time to time though, and the new man in town also said he’d had an “interesting” and “open meeting” with Ireland coach Declan Kidney on Tuesday; but he also described the meeting as “robust”.

That was a word in heavy rotation on the playlist yesterday, in fact.

Penney said that with Niall O’Donovan, Anthony Foley, Paul O’Connell and himself discussing line-out tactics that those debates would probably be robust, while when possible teething problems were mentioned, the New Zealander said that there’d be robust debate when those were encountered. In fact, he added: “We’ll have good, robust discussions behind the doors and go out with a collective view on where we’re headed.”

We took some other lessons out of yesterday. Another new catchword is “reps”, as in “CJ [Stander] comes with good reps”, so expect the Munster fans of your acquaintance to come out with the good reps of the new Batman movie, etc.

Penney confirmed he’ll be living in Cork but not surprisingly he side-stepped the ongoing issue of split facilities between Leeside and Limerick — Munster rugby must be the only place outside the Vatican where bilocation is such a hot issue — as he only arrived in the country last week.

Tomorrow Penney meets some of the senior Munster players to outline his game plan. He said yesterday that he had a clear idea of how he wants the game to be played but wasn’t inclined to share those views with the fourth estate ahead of that meeting, unsurprisingly.

The head coach was saying he’d be expecting some robust discussion at that meeting, too.