No excuses: Clayton McMillan demands fast start from Munster

Sluggish starts have been an unwanted feature of Munster's recent campaigns. That is a trend which new head coach Clayton McMillan wants to stop. 

Munster open their URC campaign against Scarlets on Saturday. Pic: ©INPHO/James Crombie

Hitting the ground running has not been a feature of Munster’s starts to recent seasons.

Leaving things late to make a run into the play-off positions at the end of a long campaign has become something of a habit and though one of those ended in a long-awaited trophy when Graham Rowntree’s team delivered the URC title in 2023, winning trophies is undoubtedly harder when a squad is scrambling to make the play-offs in the final rounds of the regular season during April and May.

It needed a near-miraculous run of five away games unbeaten to ignite a title-winning campaign that had begun with two wins from the opening seven league fixtures and last season’s return of two victories from the first block of six games before the November internationals saw Rowntree depart and the interim coaching staff needing back-to-back bonus-point victories in the last two matches to make the top eight.

The new occupant of the Munster hotseat wants to change the narrative and as he named the first competitive side of his three-year tenure after joining from New Zealand’s Chiefs, Clayton McMillan outlined his determination to banish any excuses for a poor and inconsistent start to 2025-26.

“I’m not giving myself or the team any outs around, you know, ‘we’ve lost some experience’ or ‘we haven’t had long enough in the pre-season’,” McMillan said on Thursday before Saturday’s URC season-opener at Scarlets.

“I think we’ve had enough time and we’ve shown enough in our pre-season games to show that we’re ready and as ready as we can be.

“We’re not the finished product. Every team’s going to grow and learn each week and you want to be playing your best rugby at the back end of the season, not at the front end, but you want your starting point to be higher than where you were the previous season.

“Again, that’s the expectation, what we’re aspiring to do and we’ll be able to answer that on Monday morning.” 

McMillan in pre-season set his stall out for “getting everybody's level a little bit higher - raising the floor instead of raising the bar” and that means not succumbing to another familiar pattern of previous seasons, the rollercoaster of a big performance followed by a dismal one.

Conor Murray referenced the phenomenon in his recently-published autobiography when describing Munster’s URC quarter-final exit at Ulster in Johann van Graan’s final game in charge in 2022 when he wrote: “We’ve had these mood swings in form for years where we can go through the roof for major one-off fixtures and then fall through the basement when we’re not switched on.” 

McMillan noticed it from afar before arriving and on Thursday he said: “I think a big part is really just consistency of performance. And having the best bodies available certainly helps but there’s a whole lot that goes into that and if the team has been guilty of anything over the last couple of years it’s being able to perform on the big stage when backs are against the wall and then seemingly having a really poor performance the next week.

“I think if we want to be the team that we aspire to be, just having the consistency of performance is a great starting point.

“I just think the game is pretty simple and sometimes made complicated by coaches so set-piece, winning the territorial battle, valuing your possession, converting pressure into points. Those things, no matter where you are, hold a team in pretty good stead and that’s what we’ll be looking to do on the weekend.” 

A trip to west Wales to face players fighting for their professional lives with the Welsh regions currently in existential danger is not the ideal scenario but McMillan is confident in the squad he will deploy at Parc y Scarlets.

The new head coach has for the most part named the players he had under his charge on day one of pre-season, the exceptions being first-time captain Craig Casey at scrum-half and openside flanker Alex Kendellen while fellow Ireland tourists and late arrivals to camp Tom Ahern, Gavin Coombes and Jack Crowley have to settle for bench roles.

There are starting debuts for summer arrivals Dan Kelly at outside centre and JJ Hanrahan at fly-half and welcome returns from long-term injury for props Jeremy Loughman and Oli Jager, lock Jean Kleyn and wing Shane Daly. There is also a debut in the offing for replacement tighthead prop Conor Bartley, signed from Young Munster last season.

“A huge amount of excitement in the group to go out and play a competitive match against Scarlets,” McMillan said.

“We've really enjoyed our pre-season. A lot's been documented that it's been hard and we've done things a little bit differently, but we feel like we've landed in a good place.

“Like every coach and every team, you always want another training or another session or another week to prepare yourselves, but everyone's been in the same boat, and I guess we'll find out where we're at on Saturday.” 

SCARLETS: B Murray; T Rogers, J Roberts, J Hawkins, E Mee; S Costelow, G Davies; K Mathias, H Thomas, H Thomas; S Lousi, J Ball; T Davies, J Macleod - captain, T Plumtree.

Replacements: K Myhill, A Hepburn, H O’Connor, M Douglas, J Taylor, D Blacker, J Williams, M Page.

MUNSTER: M Haley; S Daly, D Kelly, A Nankivell, T Abrahams; JJ Hanrahan, C Casey – captain; J Loughman, N Scannell, O Jager; J Kleyn, F Wycherley; J O’Donoghue, A Kendellen, B Gleeson.

Replacements: L Barron, J Wycherley, C Bartley, T Ahern, G Coombes, P Patterson, J Crowley, S O’Brien.

Referee: Sam Grove-White (Scotland)