Niall Scannell: 'Nobody will make excuses for us at the end of the season'
GETTING ON WITH IT: Munster’s Niall Scannell. Pic: Ryan Byrne/Inpho
Say it quietly but Munster’s season suddenly feels as if it has dismounted the rollercoaster and stepped confidently onto some solid ground.
Yes, that can all change in the blink of an eye, it’s Munster after all, but hang in there.
The experienced heads were rolled out in front of the media this week as preparations continued for Saturday’s Champions Cup pool decider with Northampton Saints at Franklin’s Gardens, just days after the supporter base exhaled deeply after a campaign-saving home victory over Saracens that rolled back the years to a time when such wins at Thomond Park were taken for granted.
It is a few days short of 12 weeks since head coach Graham Rowntree departed by mutual consent six games into the new season, soon followed out of the door by forwards coach Andi Kyriacou.
Ian Costello has been in interim charge since, juggling his day job as Head of Rugby Operations with first-team management duties, with help drafted in to augment the permanent staff in the shape of forward coach consultant Alex Codling from the Ireland Women’s coaching set-up, as well as academy and provincial training staff Tommy O’Donnell and Sean Cronin and the wise counsel of performance consultant Chris Boyd.
The search for a new, permanent head coach is still to get properly underway and yet the December setbacks - a missed opportunity in Europe at Castres and a home URC defeat to the all-powerful Leinster – look like blips.
Munster’s Pool 3 prospects are now in their own hands with qualification to the knockout rounds just a point away and a home Round of 16 draw the prize if they defeat the English champions to finish top of the group after this four-match qualifying phase.
And those old stagers Conor Murray and Niall Scannell looked across the table at the assembled media scribes in Limerick on Tuesday as if to say ‘what’s all the fuss about?’
Hooker Scannell at least acknowledged the unusual scenario.
“You know it’s never easy,” the 32-year-old front rower said. “It’s probably different circumstances but it was the same when Rassie (Erasmus) and Jacques (Nienaber) left (in November 2017) and then Johann (van Graan) came in.
“Unfortunately that’s pro sport and you just have to deal with it. The big thing for us was to not have a transition period and then look back at it and say ‘God, we didn’t get the points here or didn’t get the wins in Europe we need.’
“So you have to be a bit selfish as a player as well. And as a team, nobody is going to be giving you excuses at the end of the season for all that.
"So we have to battle on and to be fair, things stabilised pretty quickly, we have a huge depth of knowledge in the building. So while there hasn’t been a head coach appointed per se, it has been pretty seamless which has been good for us.
“Obviously the week after the All Blacks game (on November 2, four days after Rowntree exited) was pretty helter-skelter but I think since then it has really normalised and I think we’re into a really good swing and our form is picking up. Even the Saracens game at the weekend gave us a big boost in confidence.”
Despite all that, the noise outside the Munster bubble has been the cacophony cocktail of angst, speculation and existential threat that regularly accompanies developments at the southern province. Yet Scannell has learned to ignore it all and trust the people around him in the dressing room.
“It’s probably experience from my end. But we have a pretty experienced squad at this stage so that mentality just wasn’t really allowed to seep in.
“Look, the bottom line, and it sounds really harsh to say it, but I’ve been here when our head coach (Anthony Foley) died. So we’ve had this experience before. And with sport, it just feels like everything moves so quickly and you have to move on to the next thing.
“Thankfully nobody died and it’s been very tough for the coaches who were let go and had to move on. It’s very tough for the families. But at the end of the day, we all have to move on here as well. It’s pro sport and it can be selfish. You almost have to go against your better human judgement and just remind yourself that this is your job and you have to keep going.
“Nobody will make excuses for us at the end of the season. So you just have to try and flick that switch. In saying that, it is different and people would have had very close relationships with those coaches, myself included. You just have to move on with it really.”
Moving on this week involves finishing top of the pool and progressing to the Champions Cup knockout stages in April and the necessary 17-12 victory over Saracens at Thomond Park represents the ideal morale-booster for a tricky away trip to the English East Midlands.
"It's exciting,” Scannell said. “I find these new permutations in the Champions Cup crazy, I'll be on TNT looking at it really soon as well to see how it can go but it's still great that it's in our hands and I think that's where you have to put yourself, especially given that we lost that game to Castres.
"We're in a good spot now that we have that opportunity because you're not really guaranteed that if you've lost a game already, so we're hugely excited about that.
"It's all in our hands and it's not a big pressure scenario or relying on things that are outside your control, so we're hugely excited about that, to go over to Northampton now and have a good crack at what's obviously going to be a hugely challenging occasion.
"But at least it's in our hands to go and have a go at them.”
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