Dave Kilcoyne impressed by Caroline Currid input in Munster’s emotional success

Dave Kilcoyne has been very impressed by the impact of consultant sports psychologist Caroline Currid

CENTRAL ROLE: Dave Kilcoyne during a Munster training session at the University of Limerick this week. Kilcoyne has been very impressed by the impact of consultant sports psychologist Caroline Currid. Picture: Brendan Moran/Sportsfile

As satisfying as last Sunday’s victory at Wasps was to all concerned with Munster, there quickly came the realisation that the circumstances of that unlikely Heineken Champions Cup bonus-point win made it a unique event. The challenge against Castres at Thomond Park this evening is to park last weekend’s emotional success, kick on, and win again.

If the win in Coventry was a triumph for the impact of strength in adversity, of finding continuity in a makeshift team littered with newcomers, it was aided by the input of consultant sports psychologist Caroline Currid, the woman behind the scenes of the Limerick hurlers’ All-Ireland triumphs in recent years. Yet as Dave Kilcoyne explained, there needed to be a change of tack in the message being delivered this week in anticipation of the French Top 14 club’s visit.

“She’s been incredible for the environment, you can understand how Limerick have been so successful with her,” Kilcoyne said of Currid this week.

“We did a connectivity meeting where we sat down last week and just really got to know each other. She’s top class, she brings a huge amount of positivity, but in terms of the psychology side, she makes us think quite differently and she’s been great at getting us connected and getting us ready for games, she’s brought a different element which we’re all loving here at Munster at the moment.

“I think we’re really getting into it now and it’s an area we need to keep working on.”

Repeating the emotional effort put into last Sunday’s huge win against the odds, with more than 30 senior players absent due to Covid restrictions and injury, will be some ask just six days later as Munster return to a heroes’ welcome in front of more than 20,000 supporters. Kilcoyne said: “100%, we actually addressed that with our sports psychologist, you’ve got to be very wary that you’ve got a great win in Wasps with so many young lads and everything that went around that game and to get a bonus-point win with all the background chat with it, you have to back it up now, you have to make sure you keep building on performances and the lads who come in, that they take their chances and they’re as hungry as the lads who were in.

“So we’ve addressed that, it’s definitely an area that we need to be all over and make sure we build on that performance for Castres.”

The unknown element of inexperience has been removed somewhat with another raft of players reintroduced to the starting team after completing their post-South African trip quarantine last weekend. Niall Scannell, John Ryan, Jean Kleyn, and Jack O’Donoghue are some of the older heads involved once more as they take the field for the first time since October 23 and look to hit the ground running after eight weeks without a game.

There is also the new elephant in the Munster dressing room to overcome following the announcement this week that head coach Johann van Graan will be leaving for Bath at the end of the season, though he was adamant nothing would detract from the focus placed on preparing for Castres.

“You’ve got to look at last weekend’s game in isolation that it was a very unique experience. Every week in sport is different. Now, it’s a six-day turnaround, you’ve got staff coming back, you’ve got coaches coming back, you’ve got players coming back,” van Graan said on Wednesday.

“So just to give you a simple example, you’ve got Patrick Campbell that made his debut, played phenomenally well. That’s his first game at that level so he’s learned a lot, but, emotionally, that takes a lot. You’ve got Dave Kilcoyne, who hasn’t played any minutes of rugby since the Connacht game eight weeks ago so you can ask him how his body is after that.

“Then you’ve got guys coming back into the HPC who have literally been sitting in hotel rooms so the reason why I said that is we won’t replicate the emotional energy that we did on Sunday because it was such a unique occasion and we all rise. We’ve got a mantra at the club: We rise by lifting each other and we certainly did last Sunday.

“The reason why I say that is in terms of (being) destabilised, now it’s a new focus and we’ve had some spicy games against Castres, if you think about our last one we played there (in November 2018), I think we lost 13-12. The previous [week’s] game at Thomond Park was a brilliant rugby game (won 30-5). So, this will be an Irish-French affair and it will be spicy. It’s two teams that know each other very well in Europe so that’s our focus for the week.”

Munster are unbeaten in their last 14 home pool games, with 13 wins and a draw, while keeping their opponents under 10 points in eight of those games, including the last three in a row.

So with Castres arriving from France to play in front of a near-full Thomond Park crowd having lost their home opener to Harlequins six days ago, the odds will be in Munster’s favour. For once.