New head coach or not, Murray in favour of sticking with current Munster gameplan

Munster's Conor Murray. Pic: James Crombie/Inpho

Conor Murray has seen enough over 198 appearances for Munster to know anything is possible when it comes to the appointment of a new head coach but even a new permanent choice were to walk through the door on Monday he would urge the new boss not to tinker with the current gameplan.

Reading between the lines of the 35-year-old scrum-half’s media session on Tuesday, as Munster continued their preparation for a pool-deciding Champions Cup clash at Northampton Saints on Saturday, Murray would prefer to see current attack coach Mike Prendergast promoted to the top job as Graham Rowntree’s permanent replacement.

Prendergast, who has publicly expressed his desire to become Munster’s next head coach, would remain the same “genuine kind of guy” in Murray’s eyes were he to get the call but for now, the number nine is content with the current set-up under interim head coach Ian Costello, the full-time head of rugby operations whose temporary stewardship of the first team has put them in with a chance of topping Champions Cup Pool 3 with a win at Franklin’s Gardens this Saturday.

Murray played his first game under Costello’s charge last Saturday, playing the full 80 minutes in the vital win over Saracens as he returned from a hyper-extended elbow injury that had sidelined him since winning his 120th Ireland cap in November. 

Despite the outside angst provoked by defeats at Castres and at home to Leinster in his absence, Murray reported a happy camp and said he would not be perturbed if the status quo were to be maintained through to the end of the season.

“When I was injured and rehabbing I was in here and in the meetings and you're around, you feel the atmosphere and you feel the mood and it's been good,” Murray said.

“We're all familiar with Cossie, especially lads who've been here for a while since Academy days and we know how he operates. He came in a number of times, he was part of the defence coaching setup and then he was doing our scrum D for the last couple of years as well. 

"He came in for that Wasps week (in 2021) when lads were stuck in South Africa so there's plenty to be familiar with and the show has kept going on and Cossie has done a really good job in that and letting Prendy, Leams, Mossy and all them keep doing what they're doing and he's just navigating it all.

“He knows Munster, he's been around long enough, he knows the culture here, he knows a lot of the players, he knows what makes the players tick and he's just managing it nicely.

“I think in the situation we've gone through, there's a freshness about the place. When there's a change, there's an automatic kind of reaction.

"I don't know, people just seem like oh maybe we'll be under pressure now, people from the outside will think that it's a bit of a mess, but it's about how we react within this building and last week was huge, getting a result like that. It allows you to build something hopefully.

“Even say a head coach walked in on Monday, I would say Leams and Prendy, the game plan, the setup, the calling systems would be very difficult to change midseason. Would he just have to keep that? I've probably been through that before, I've been through the number of coaches at Munster.

I'm not saying it wouldn't happen, but I'm sure players would be more comfortable. Even if a head coach came in, we'd be like can we keep the same game plan because we can't learn a new game plan in the middle of the season, you know what I mean? So that would probably have to wait till the summer.

“That's just my opinion, maybe someone walks in on Monday and throws out the playbook and we go again.”