Munster CEO defends recruitment and travel policies after Conor Murray criticism

Munster CEO Ian Flanagan insisted the club invests “wisely” and sustainably for long-term success.

In his recently published autobiography, Conor Murray accused Munster of cutting corners on spending, making poor signings, and suffering  from excessive head coach turnover. Pic: Brendan Moran/Sportsfile

Munster Rugby boss Ian Flanagan has refuted claims made in Conor Murray’s autobiography that his organisation has been guilty of penny pinching on team travel, “dud” signings and disruptive coaching “churn”.

Ireland scrum-half legend Murray, who retired last month after 15 years as a Munster player wrote in his recently published Cloud Nine of his frustration that the team he represented 206 times failed to continue the success of the Heineken Cup-winning heroes of 2006 and 2008. 

Murray, who won a Magners League title in 2011 and its current incarnation, the URC, in 2023, believes Munster’s hierarchy should have recruited better, Test-level talent in that period to keep the province competitive in Europe but instead signed some “duds”. 

South African World Cup-winning duo RG Snyman and Damian de Allende, who signed in 2020, represent the highest-profile signings in recent years, though the former’s three seasons were disrupted by two serious knee injuries before the lock joined Leinster, while the latter left for Japan after two seasons. 

Munster’s current overseas players are wing Thaakir Abrahams, centre Alex Nankivell, and lock Jean Kleyn, the only capped Test international of the trio.

“Look, all I can do is speak to my experience since I was appointed,” Flanagan said on Saturday at the official opening of Munster Rugby’s €7.3 million Cork Centre of Excellence at Virgin Media Park.

“All I can say since I arrived and particularly now how we have structured things with Ian Costello taking over as general manager is that there is an incredibly robust (player recruitment) process in place.

“An incredible amount of due diligence is done in terms of any players we are considering adding to the group, not just the quality of the player but the player as a person, the character of the player, that they will fit into our culture, with our values, and that they’ll add to the group.

“So, it’s not about having the biggest names in the world. Don’t get me wrong, we have signed some very big players as well in my time here. But it’s about, are they the right fit for us? Will they add value?

“I think I can wholeheartedly endorse our process about incoming transfers over the last number of years in terms of the players who have come in. I can’t really speak about players before my time.” 

Murray had also taken aim at the high turnover of head coaches during his 16 seasons at Munster. Capped in 2010 by Tony McGahan, the number nine also played under Rob Penney, the late Anthony Foley, Rassie Erasmus, Johann van Graan and Graham Rowntree before finishing his final campaign last June under interim boss Costello.

“Likewise in terms of churn, I am not going to refute points that have been made in the media one-by-one,” Flanagan said.

“Look, Conor is a legend of the Irish game, a Munster legend and he always will be but there is context to be placed as well around some of the things that have been reported.

“I haven’t read the book, I’m just hearing what is being reported in the media. But just for context, ‘coaching churn’ for example, all of the coaches that I have been involved with and even before my time – Johann van Graan, who was my first coach, decided to go to Bath and leave in the middle of a contract. Rob Penney decided to go to Japan. Rassie Erasmus decided to go to the Springboks. And Axel (Antony Foley), as we all know, tragically passed away. And Graham (Rowntree) left by mutual consent.

“For each of those individual coaches, there were particular motivations and reasons. But I would not absolutely put Munster in a position where we are being blamed or we are somehow at fault for decisions made by individual coaches. So I would have an issue with that word ‘churn’ being used.” 

Murray had highlighted what he was as penny pinching affecting team performance by describing a lengthy trip to play Zebre Parma last season. It was a game that ended in a historic first loss to the Italian side and Murray wrote:

“Our defence was abysmal. Some of our mistakes that let them in for tries were so basic that you couldn’t blame them on the coaches... the buck stops at the players on the pitch.

“But there’s one issue beyond our control that probably played some part in this shit show and that was our travel itinerary.

“The penny pinching has been going on for years at Munster, a sort of mindset of doing things on the cheap here and there and hoping to get away with it.

“In this case we were down to play Zebre in Parma on the Saturday at 4pm. On the Friday morning we drove to Dublin – two and a half hours. Waited in the airport – two hours. Food was a problem, lads had to get food in the airport and you should never be eating airport food. Fly to Milan – two and a half hours. A coach from Milan to Parma – 90 minutes.

“Get to the hotel about half seven, eight o’clock on the Friday evening. We have our dinner and head to bed, everyone wrecked.” 

In response, Flanagan said: “Look, it's my job to run the business at every level. And when I say at every level, that's the senior team, the players who play with Ireland, the guys who go on the Lions tour, but down to this level and down to the community and grassroots level.

“And all I can say is Munster absolutely invests and we invest wisely. Look at this building we're sitting in. We put our money in the right places for long-term sustainable growth and long-term sustainable success.

“This is all almost €8m-worth of building designed to ensure that our participation levels in rugby, the growth and development of rugby, the production of boys and girls who will turn into men's and women’s senior players – this will absolutely anchor that system and make it robust.

“I'll give you another example. We played Scarlets last week in Llanelli. Llanelli is not the easiest place in the world to get to, even though it's not that far away as the crow flies.

“We do obviously charter flights for some of our games, but not all of them because no club does, no club in the URC charters for every game.

“But to give you an example, so we fly commercial scheduled a lot of the time, like most of the other clubs. Being based in Munster our flight options are probably more limited than they are for Leinster.

“So we go out of Dublin for a number of the games. We went out of Dublin last week for Scarlets. But what we did do was the players travelled up on the Thursday evening after training for a Friday flight, stayed in a hotel in Dublin, and we invested the money in that consciously because we didn't want the players getting out of bed early on Friday, going straight to Dublin and getting on a flight.

“So that's an example where we are spending money to protect performance, but we're doing it in what we believe to be a sustainable way because the reality is chartering for every game just isn't financially doable.”