Boss Penney builds bonds in great outdoors

Pre-season is all about building for the new campaign but Munster’s players have been taking the concept literally after pitching their tents in Tralee earlier this month.

Munster put the finishing touches to their pre-season preparations in Cork tonight when London Irish visit Musgrave Park (7pm) ahead of the province’s September 1 RaboDirect Pro12 opener at Edinburgh.

Yet getting to this point involved some team-building of a different kind when Munster’s newly arrived head coach Rob Penney took the players on a training camp in Kerry and told them to erect their own accommodation.

“We put the tents up and got soaked,” Penney explained.

“We stayed in tents in Tralee Rugby Club and had some barbecues.

“Their mouths dropped when they saw the tents. They thought we were kidding but it’s summertime in Ireland, so we had to do some camping.

“The boys sung some songs. I said to the boys I was being selfish about it, that ‘it’s about me getting to know you outside of a rugby environment’. And credit to the lads, they embraced it and did a great job.”

New Zealander Penney also challenged his squad to a cooking competition, with six teams attempting to win Munster’s very own version of Masterchef, barbecue-style, and surprising their new boss in the process. “We had a cooking competition and they were fantastic on the barbecues, did a marvellous job,” Penney said.

“The were split into teams and they all had to do an entree, a main and a dessert. They see it on TV all the time, it was a bit of reality TV.”

Penney only revealed the coaching team received zero points for their efforts but it is understood Ronan O’Gara’s steaks proved the culinary highlight, alongside Peter Stringer’s wholemeal pancakes.

Needless to say, the new coach will be looking for a different recipe for success this evening.