Munster ready to play waiting game to get right person for head coach job

PATIENCE REQUIRED: Munster interim head coach Ian Costello, left, and defence coach Denis Leamy before the match against an All Blacks XV at Thomond Park. Photo by Brendan Moran/Sportsfile

The search for Graham Rowntree’s successor as Munster head coach begins in earnest on Monday as Ian Costello momentarily sheds his interim boss status and returns to the day job as Head of Rugby Operations.

As the playing squad takes a 10-day break before Costello leads preparations for the resumption of the URC campaign at home to the Lions on November 30, the recruitment process will have some shape put on it with the interim head coach part of the selection group with Munster’s Professional Game Committee on which he sits.

The PGC, chaired by long-time Munster Board member John Hartery CEO and comprising independent nominees and former players Billy Holland, Killian Keane, John Kelly, Mick O’Driscoll, and Munster Branch Finance Committee chairperson Tom Kinirons also had Rowntree as a non-voting member alongside Costello and chief executive Ian Flanagan but there will be no rush to fill the recently vacated chair as far as the Head of Rugby Operations is concerned.

“The first thing is, the squad will get a rest,” Costello on Saturday night. “We had a planning day (on Friday), we didn’t train, so we met at various levels – heads of departments, coaches, PGC.

“It was all about planning what happens next. The lads get a 10-day break and then we’ll take a run-in to get prepared for a really difficult block. That’s the coaches and the squad.

“We said we’d let this (All Blacks XV) week go and we will coordinate on Monday and look at what that selection process looks like, the recruitment process.

“There is a bit of work in that profiling the coach we are looking for, how they would add to what we have already because genuinely we feel like we are doing an awful lot of things really well and that alignment and integration, we want someone that is going to add to that.

“Somebody that is going to add to the three or four years of work that we have done. You talk about consistency and continuity, add to that possibly.” 

“There isn’t really because there was very little disruption to the day-to-day coaching. Mike coaches attack. He is a world-class attack coach. Denis (Leamy), the best defence in the league the last two seasons. Kyri coaches and the forwards and George (Murray) and Mossy (Lawler) are still there.

“From within we have added some Academy coaches to support the group and my job is probably just to blend it all together.

“If it takes a month, if it takes three months, if it takes seven, the key thing is we get the right person, the right person for the squad for what we have built already.

“I think that’s where we have to be really clear. We have to have confidence in the direction we are going, the strategy we have had, the vision we have had in the last couple of years, and then find a coach.

“If it takes the rest of the season to get the right person, so be it.” 

With his interim role in mind, Costello will be eager to have more players off the treatment table and back onto the training field during this international window. Munster lost fly-half Billy Burns to a calf strain against the All Blacks XV, and first-year scrum-half Ethan Coughlan to a knock with both positions missing key players for the month on Ireland duty in Jack Crowley and number nines Craig Casey and Conor Murray.

Back-three players Shane Daly and Thaakir Abrahams as well as veteran loosehead prop Dave Kilcoyne appear to be the most likely players ready to return with centre Alex Nankivell also considered a short-term absentee and second row Edwin Edogbo the next in line after that, although another loosehead, Jeremy Loughman, is facing at least eight weeks on the sidelines with a knee injury.

“This is a huge window for us to regenerate and regenerate the squad,” Costello said. “So hopefully by the time we play against the Lions we have three, four or five more players adding to the depth in our squad.”