Ultan Dillane can help raise my game, says Donnacha Ryan

The gnarled, no-nonsense ethos fostered by men such as Peter Clohessy and Mick Galwey was still very much a guiding tenet of life at Munster by the time a young Donnacha Ryan first stepped up to the senior squad in 2004.

Many of the established players weren’t exactly proffering a welcoming embrace for the young bucks striving to relieve them of their shirts. New faces had to look after themselves if they wanted to fit in. It was sink-or-swim stuff. Ryan, famously, had to bide his time for years with the province, so it would be natural if he was conditioned to treat the emergence of 22-year-old Ultan Dillane as a fellow Ireland lock with some degree of suspicion and disgruntlement.

The opposite is the case.