'It’s an amazing achievement' - Leamy hails Munster's landmark win after season of flux
BRAINS TRUST: Munster backroom staff, George Murray, Mike Prendergast, head coach Graham Rowntree, Denis Leamy and Andy Kyriacou with the URC Trophy. Picture: INPHO/James Crombie
In amongst the wild celebrations that followed Munster’s epic BKT URC Grand Final victory at DHL Stadium, you would have forgiven Denis Leamy for a less than engaged post-match interview.
The defence coach had been playing for his province the last time a Munster captain had lifted a trophy, after the Magners League final win over Leinster a dozen years ago and the current team he has been integral to transforming these past 10 months were hooting and hollering inside the visitors’ dressing room with all the gusto one would expect after the lifting of a great weight from their collective shoulders.
Yet Leamy provided some wonderful insights as the hoopla continued barely 20 metres away on the other side of the dressing room doors as he expressed what we had seen inside the coaches’ box in Cape Town after their players had taken down the defending champions in their own magnificent backyard to put the tin hat on a remarkable rollercoaster of a first campaign for a new coaching ticket gathered together by first-season head coach Graham Rowntree.
“It’s an amazing achievement,” Leamy said of the management’s outpourings of emotions as Rowntree simply placed his head in his hands.
“It’s been difficult along the way and we probably laid our gameplan in a tough way. We wanted to change an awful lot in the way we’d played over the last couple of years and that was always going to take time.
“The great thing about Wig (Rowntree) in that period of time was his calmness. His ability to give hope to people is a great leadership trait. He backed us and didn’t want us changing what we were trying to do.
“It was going to take time but we eked out a couple of important wins early in the season and that just kept us ticking along. You think the Bulls in Thomond Park and Ulster, and then we got into a good bit of a flow and we’ve been pretty consistent. There were a couple of blips this year, in the New Year but the last seven or eight weeks have been phenomenal and this group have been so tough, so warrior-like in how they’ve gone about their business.
“Today there were little bumps in the road, things didn’t go our way, you know, interpretations around the breakdown and stuff like that but how they digested that and were next-ball mentality, next-phase mentality was really strong. Excellent from the boys.”
Saturday’s clash with the Stormers perhaps epitomised the season it had concluded with the sixth away game in a row including the Heineken Champions Cup exit at the hands of the Sharks in Durban’s King Park on April 1.
Munster returned to South Africa a fortnight later and turned a campaign teetering on the brink of implosion into one of astounding achievement. They ended the Stormers’ lengthy unbeaten home record and then came from 22-3 down after 50 minutes to draw with the Sharks and secure their place in the play-offs and next season’s Champions Cup with a fifth-place finish in the league standings. The momentum that galvanising two-game tour gave Peter O’Mahony’s men was incalculable, propelling them into a series of play-off road games that saw them oust three of the four higher seeded teams – Glasgow Warriors, Leinster and now the Stormers.
The success, sealed with a gritty, brave and composed performance backboned by tries from Diarmuid Barron, Calvin Nash and man of the match John Hodnett brought out some old school Munster values from old soldier Leamy, citing both Declan Kidney and the late Anthony Foley as he looked back on a season that began with five defeats in their opening seven URC matches.
“It’s tough. Being a Munster man you care a lot and personally, and Mike (Prendergast, attack coach) and Kyri (forwards coach Andi Kyriacou), we all played for Munster and we know what it’s like to wear the shirt and it’s not a perfect world. You have your ups and downs and it’s about being balanced.
“We always had a great saying in Munster over the years, Deccie used to say it and Axel would say it, ‘we’re never as good as people say we are and we’re never as bad as people say we are’.
“We’ll remember that over the next few days as well. That’s important. There’s some really really strong teams in this league and in Europe and we have to stay growing now, that’s the challenge.”
Munster will put that to the test tonight when they parade the URC trophy in a homecoming event at Thomond Park but Leamy urged the squad to soak it all in and remember the feeling.
“It’s so important the boys enjoy this,” he said. “I’ve been part of winning sides myself and I look back I think maybe I didn’t enjoy that enough, maybe I didn’t appreciate it enough.
“I want them, and we want them as a coaching group to appreciate that, you know, when they get home to Ireland, meeting their families, meeting the fans, bringing the trophy on a little tour. That’s something we should really enjoy and relish.”
STORMERS: D Willemse; A Davids, R Nel, D du Plessis, L Zas (C Blommetjies, 78); M Libbock, H Jantjies (P de Wet, 65); S Kitshoff – captain (A Vermaak, 72), J Dweba (JJ Kotze, 61), F Malherbe (N Fouche, 61); R van Heerden (M Theunissen, 78), M Orie; D Fourie (W Engelbrecht, 57), H Dayimani (B-J Dixon, 49), E Roos.
Yellow card: Roos 18-28
MUNSTER: M Haley; C Nash (K Earls, 70), A Frisch (B Healy, 62), M Fekitoa, S Daly; J Crowley, C Murray (C Casey, 65); J Loughman (J Wycherley, 61), D Barron (N Scannell, 61), S Archer (R Salanoa, 61); J Kleyn (A Kendellen, 68), T Beirne; P O'Mahony – captain (RG Snyman, 34 - HIA), J Hodnett, G Coombes.
Yellow card: Haley 51-61; Crowley 78 Referee: A Piardi (Italy)
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