What does being the best club in the world actually mean for Munster?
“The best means you can do your best work at Munster, whatever the role,” the province’s Strategic Plan 2018-2021 declares.
Acting chief executive Philip Quinn adds: “It’s to be the club of choice for players.
“Saracens would have a model similar to that. Everyone can criticise Saracens but what they’ve built up, some players are going to them for less than they could get at other clubs. That’s because they want to be there, they’re taken care of on the player welfare side and they’re a successful club.
“That’s what we’re craving. We need to have the same here.”
Munster’s values are stated in the document as “Passion, Ambition, Excellence, Integrity, Community.”
“They haven’t changed,” Quinn said.
“We’ve always had those and we’ve put phrases around them, the behaviours associated with those values.
“We can and we will”, “decency is currency”, “we beats I”, “respect is everything”.
Along with the mantra, We Rise By Lifting Each Other, it’s all pushing us to be the best club in the world, our long-term aim.
“We’ve a long way to go.”
The basis of the plan revolves around six strategic priorities.
- Consistent performance and silverware;
- A brilliant provincial game;
- High performing global organisation;
- Sustainable position of financial strength;
- Unique stadia experience;
- A global Red Army.
Naturally, the foundation of all them lies in the first. Operational objectives under that banner include: “Qualify for knockout phases of both PRO14 and Champions Cup every year.”
The stated goal?
“To win a least one of the PRO14 or EPCR by 2021.”
“We have to win silverware,” Quinn told the Irish Examiner.
“It’s what we expect of ourselves. It’s what our supporters club expect of us, our clubs, sponsors, everybody. This is where we believe we have to be as Munster. That’s what’s driving us in everything we do on a daily basis. Getting back to that position.
“Some may say ‘only one of the PRO14 or EPCR by 2021, in the next three years?’ It has to be a realistic plan. We haven’t won one in a good few years at this stage. We need to get back there.
“Johann (van Graan) will have goals that will probably exceed this. He’ll have his own picture of where we’ll be by 2021 and hopefully we will outperform this, but that is what we’re stating at the moment.
“For what we’ve achieved in the last couple of years, we haven’t had success, we’ve been beaten in semi-finals, but given the amount of change we’ve had off the pitch, with Axel’s passing, Rassie leaving then, last season, we’ve had two turbulent seasons but still managed to perform to a reasonable level on the pitch. Not at a level where we’re satisfied and unfortunately we’ve been found out in both seasons in the latter parts of the season with our game plan.
“What Johann is doing with the help of his fantastic coaching team and all the heads of department is evolve the game plan this year. That’s already becoming evident and it’s all with a view to getting to the business end of the season, whereby we’ve got a few more strings to our bow and hopefully we can take that step to a final and on to
silverware.”
