'Significant burden' for Costello and Munster to claim URC knock-out spot

Munster Rugby Squad Training, UL, Limerick 5/5/2025

Ian Costello has admitted Munster’s Champions Cup exit at Bordeaux has led to their recent run of poor form in the URC but the interim boss insisted his team still had control of its destiny with play-off qualification on the line.

Munster will look to rebound from a three-game losing streak which began at Stade Chaban-Delmas in a European quarter-final defeat on April 12. The 2023 URC champions returned to league duty in fifth place and with their sights set on securing a top-four finish in the standings to earn a home quarter-final in the first round of the play-offs. Back-to-back losses to the Bulls at home and then at Cardiff 11 days ago leave Munster outside the top eight and fighting to reach both the knockout rounds and next season’s Champions Cup draw.

They will start the weekend in ninth place ahead of Ulster’s visit to Thomond Park this Friday before a final game of the regular season at home to Benetton in Cork seven days later.

Costello on Monday reported a positive start to the week’s training with the return of eight frontline players to full training after injury absences, including veteran trio Peter O’Mahony, Conor Murray and Stephen Archer, all of whom will be playing their expected final games at Thomond Park before departing at the end of a turbulent season which saw head coach Graham Rowntree exit the province just six games in last October.

The interim head coach conceded the management upheaval of just over six months ago had been only part of the explanation for Munster’s current plight.

“Look, it’s definitely a factor,” Costello said. “High performance sport is around consistency and change is always difficult. I think we got an initial bounce and then things stabilised. We’ve also been competing with an injury list that was probably difficult to compete on two fronts.

“We went as far as a quarter-final and we were probably disappointed on a technical level against Bordeaux, despite them being a really good side. What probably knocked us back from fifth to ninth is the fallout from that.

“I think we’ve struggled from such an emotional high to maintain the consistency over the next couple of games that we had been starting to show, with the exception of the Edinburgh game, that was really the outlier. But through our decent period we would have been much more consistent.

“What’s put us from fifth to ninth is the last three weeks and that’s what we have to address straight away. So a factor, definitely, but I actually think the damage was in the last couple of weeks. But it’s still in our hands to correct it.” 

Costello will hand the Munster reins over to Clayton McMillan when the New Zealander arrives from the Chiefs this summer but he is determined his stint as interim boss extends into the knockout stages of the URC campaign.

“It’s like anything, whether it’s interim, whether it’s a month, whether it’s seven months, that responsibility you have for everything that’s gone before you, we’ve got to make sure that we look after the next two weeks and put ourselves into the play-offs and into the Champions Cup.

“It’s pretty significant burden. We know the consequences but we’re trying to focus on the positives of what it means to be in the Champions Cup, what it means to be in knockout rugby. And that’s about the whole club. That’s nothing to do with me, that’s to do with everybody that’s in this building and everything that’s gone before us.

“That is the privilege as well as that burden of responsibility, to make sure that the club is at that end of things next year and there’s a good bit to navigate with Ulster up first and then please god, with Treviso the week after.”