Kearney gives Axel a shot in the arm

Anthony Foley found an ally in the enemy camp yesterday with Leinster’s Rob Kearney expressing his admiration for the Munster coach as he attempts to stamp his authority on the province in the post-Rob Penny era.

The pair’s mutual time in the Ireland camp was brief with Foley’s international career winding down in 2005 and Kearney’s kicking off that same year, but the Munster man made a bigger impression when he joined the Ireland staff in 2012.

“I was a little bit older and he was a coach and, to be fair, I was pretty impressed with him,” said Kearney yesterday ahead of tomorrow’s Guinness Pro12 meeting between the two provinces at the Aviva Stadium.

“More impressed with him than I expected to be — and I don’t mean that in a negative way at all. He took [Declan Kidney’s] defence for that full season and I thought he was very good.”

Foley’s stock has been on the rise for some time now given that spell spent under Kidney and his apprenticeship with Munster, but his first few months in the head coach’s job have been difficult with Munster struggling to discover some form.

Two hard-to-swallow defeats at home to Edinburgh and Ospreys have been only partly offset by a pair of victories against Italian opposition, with the leaking of an internal management report on the players a month ago only adding to the difficulties.

“They’re only four games in,” said Kearney. “It’s not easy for a coaching staff to come in and change things very quickly. The way they played under [Rob] Penney is very different to how they’re trying to play now under Axel. It will take a while to implement that new game-plan.

“The margins are tiny between them winning and losing games and getting that little bit of luck. They’re not getting any luck.”

Kearney accepted that Munster have not been “firing on all cylinders” and the same can be said for Leinster who have been hindered by early-season injuries woes and find themselves carrying two wins and two losses.

The first meeting of these two rivals has always been viewed as the point at which the season truly ramps up, especially with European bows just around the corner, but Kearney admits some of the fire has gone out of the head-to-head in recent times.

“I don’t think that’s a bad thing. Ten years ago, in my first game, there was a huge hatred and it was probably more from them towards us and probably more envy on our part. I dunno, because we have had very good national success over the years, maybe it has brought guys together.

“The Munster guys off the field would be friendly off the field now whereas before they wouldn’t.”

Few have done as much to foster that as Kearney. He was just 22 when he famously questioned, at a meeting in Enfield in 2008, whether Munster players showed the same spirit in an Irish jersey as a red one.

Ireland did the Grand Slam three months later.

He played down the story yesterday — not for the first time — but fortunes have turned since with the national team now on the crest of a wave and Leinster and Munster the ones hoping to ward off suggestions of decline in both their ranks.

Kearney, for one, is not about to panic.

“Because we have that welfare system and the international players don’t get introduced back in until later, the Irish are always slower to start. That’s why the English love getting the Irish provinces on those first two [European] weekends.

“I know Leinster, we’ve been done a couple of times in that first round over the years and the other provinces too. But this weekend is one where both teams need to put in a good competitive performance.”