Graham Rowntree: 'There’s a different stress. There’s an expectancy now'

Graham Rowntree is entering his third season as head coach of Munster and is finding the journey to date enjoyable but more stressful that his first season. 

ENJOYABLE YET STRESSFUL: Munster's Head Coach Graham Rowntree is heading into his third season and is finding the journey enjoyable yet stressful. Picture: Brendan Moran/Sportsfile

Ask Graham Rowntree for his thoughts on the upcoming season, his third as Munster head coach, and his answer perfectly encapsulates why he describes the current nature of the role as both enjoyable and more stressful than when he took the job.

URC champions in his first year after a rollercoaster league campaign, losing semi-finalists in year two of the Rowntree project after another go round of ups and downs and the former Leicester and England prop is not expecting his professional life to get any easier in 2024-25.

Munster kick off the new league campaign on Saturday evening in front of the Thomond Park faithful with an unusual challenge in the form of derby rivals Connacht. There follows an away day in Italy at Zebre Parma in round two, then an appointment in Cork to welcome the Ospreys before the small matter of playing Leinster at Croke Park and a two-game tour to South Africa.

And that’s just the URC. 

“It’s only got better, hasn’t it? The quality has got better,” Rowntree said this week. “Anyone can beat anyone on their day. You throw in the South Africans, what you get in South Africa matters and that’s our target.

“I think the quality of the league has gone up and anything can happen. You know, how teams play when they come here, the wins that we’ve had on the road, I think the quality is going the right way.

“Teams are sussing each other out. You’ve got to be fit, hungry, the breakdown is war. It’s war and I feel for the referees. You’ve got to be on top of everything, you’ve got to keep all these plates balancing in your game. You can’t come off anything. You take your eye off the ruck, crikey. By thinking about set-piece the ruck fails so you’ve got to plan training accordingly.” 

Which brings us to Rowntree’s sense of his own role, two years after his elevation from Munster’s forwards coach to his first stint as a head coach.

Has it become more enjoyable or more stressful?

“Both. I enjoy it, and it’s more stressful. It’s a valid answer, it’s true! There’s a different stress. There’s an expectancy now. Two years ago there was this ‘are you up to this?’ kind of look.” 

Rowntree insisted he never asked that question of himself before adding “but a lot of people were, for the right reasons”.

“Now there’s an expectancy. There’s a lot to manage and I’m very lucky I’ve got some good people around me.. great coaches, a great coaching team that’s going to keep us pointing the right way.

“We’re managing different things every day, player availability to injuries, media – which you get comfortable with as you get older. That’s what I have realised about this job, people who do this job in their early 40s, you know, I couldn’t have done this job four years ago, you’ve just got to have been through a few things, to keep everything in the right… it’s all context.

“It’s all context how you think about things. You’ve just got to keep a level of stability when things are being thrown at you.

“I sound like some Ted Talk now. But what can you do? Control what you can and keep everyone around you steady. Just keep them thinking calmly.” 

It was in the same interview session at Thomond Park last Tuesday that he voluntarily addressed ongoing speculation he had fallen out with veteran back-rower Peter O’Mahony over the Test centurion’s contract negotiations last season.

It was yet another example of the type of rumour Munster Rugby seems to attract more than any other, be it gossip about Jean Kleyn’s career being over following eye surgery last season or Dave Kilcoyne being forced into retirement due to a shoulder issue. Both players had been seen in full view during that afternoon’s training with Kilcoyne doing fitness work as rehabs that shoulder injury and Kleyn as part of the squad ahead of his comeback from a 10-month absence against Connacht this evening.

“I didn’t expect it and you only see it when you’re in it, when you’re at the end of the gun,” Rowntree said of the relentless Munster rumour mill.

“I didn’t see it. I’d deign to suggest we’re quite well followed and there’s a few clicks around us as a province but you only experience that when you’re in it and two years down the line I’m more battle-hardened to that.

“When I talk like this, I’m comfortable talking like this with rugby nerds, with all due respect, we all love the game and I’m comfortable with it, but it is consuming.”