Genial South African giant Jean Kleyn loving life in Munster

Many might feel intimidated facing a 6 ft 8 inch, 18-stone South African boasting a thick black beard and sporting a black eye.

However, when Munster’s new second-row forward Jean Kleyn faced the media at UL yesterday, it was apparent we were in the company of a genial giant happy to talk about how he has been enjoying his time since joining Munster in August.

“It has been much better than I had expected, honestly it has been fantastic,” he said with a broad smile. “It is such a good group of lads. I think the big thing is there are no egos here, which is a massive thing. Everyone is so accommodating and very friendly.

“It has been a bit of a hard time [with injury]. I played three or four games and I did my ankle and was out for two months. Even then, you are still included and that feels good. Obviously, the support we get from our supporters is really good.

“I think whenever you start something new you’ll always have that thought in the back of your mind: ‘Am I making the right choice,’ but even on arrival I immediately realised: ‘Yeah, I did’. I was very positive about coming here. From minute one, everybody was so accommodating, so friendly. And I love Irish people, it is such a friendly nation, it is very refreshing, it is very nice,” said Kleyn, who was not too bothered about the shiner he picked up against Leinster.

The chances are we haven’t seen the best of Kleyn. He arrived on the recommendation of Munster defence coach Jacques Nienaber, having starred with Western Province in the Currie Cup and the Stormers in Super Rugby even though he only turned 23 in August.

He has been impressed with the standard of rugby here.

“It is way up there,” he declared. “I have to say PRO12 is very competitive and then, when you make the step up to European Cup, it is another level. It is world class. The only thing I can compare it to is playing the New Zealand sides in Super Rugby. It is very similar, it is very fast rugby, very hard.

“Although I didn’t work under Rassie, his reputation preceded him, so I immediately thought this is an amazing opportunity; to work under Rassie Erasmus would be fantastic.

“I worked under Jacques Nienaber for a good couple of years at the Stormers and at Western Province rugby, so having the opportunity to work with him again was a prospect I looked forward to.”

Then, CJ Stander assured him of life in Limerick.

“I am sort of more used to the smaller-town living, if I could put it that way. They were telling me it was a small town and I came over and it took me about 15 minutes to get into town and I was like: ‘This is not a small town.’

“I did speak to CJ before coming over, he gave me a call, out of the blue. I had never talked to the guy before and he gave me a call and he was like: ‘Hey Jean, how is it?’

“I was like: ‘Sorry, who is this now?’ He is such a nice fella... he gave me a few pointers. As I said, the guys were so accommodating from the very beginning. It was an easy transition for me.

“I moved in with Dave Kilcoyne for the first couple of months and I really got to experience the Irish culture.”