McMillan still learning and will give everyone a shot at Munster

The new boss started as he means to go on at Thomond Park.

Mon, 06 Oct, 2025 - 07:24

Simon Lewis, Thomond Park

URC: Munster 23 Cardiff 20

The sight of Roman Salanoa and Edwin Edogbo participating in Munster’s pre-game preparations at Thomond Park gave watching supporters a welcome reminder of the talent still waiting to be showcased across this first campaign under new head coach Clayton McMillan.

Both forwards have had more than their share of misfortune with injuries but their on-pitch presence ahead of a URC home opener with Cardiff on Saturday night augured well for the coming weeks and months. More immediately, having escaped Thomond Park with a narrow victory on his maiden home outing as Munster boss, McMillan will welcome the availability of a fresh raft of players to training this week ahead of Friday’s visit of Edinburgh to Cork’s Virgin Media Park.

This was far from fluent performance from Munster, despite adding a second win of the season. Yet the fallout from the opening Scarlets road success was sizeable, injuries to scrum-half Craig Casey and Alex Kendellen, Ireland tourists both in July, fly-half JJ Hanrahan, and debutant tighthead prop Conor Bartley.

Hanrahan, centre Tom Farrell, props Michael Milne and John Ryan, and wing Andrew Smith will all return to training this week following various short-term injuries while wing Diarmuid Kilgallen, full-back Mike Haley in addition to tighthead prop Salanoa, lock Edogbo and, Munster hope, Casey, are not far behind them, with an interpro meeting at Croke Park with Leinster looming in 12 days.

For McMillan, there is no need to look for short-term signings. Addressing tighthead stocks, with Oli Jager playing 70 minutes against Cardiff before making way for academy prop Ronan Foxe, the Munster boss said: “I think we’re okay. We’ve got John Ryan back next week. Roman's had a big increase in his training load. We’ve got Ronan Foxe out there today. Oli’s been going guns blazing.

“Around the tighthead spaces, if we’re going to bring anybody in, I don’t want to just bring any old body in. I want to bring somebody in that’s going to be worthy of coming in and being significantly better than what we have.

“And I'm still learning about the guys that we've got here, so I want to legitimately give them a bloody good shot at it before we make that decision. I won’t sit here and lie and say that across our whole squad that I’m not constantly looking and just seeing who might be out there in the event we need to go down that track. But I’m happy with what these boys are showing us."

Reducing the injury list is clearly important, as McMillan acknowledged.

“Oh, it's critical. You need all your best players available to you. It creates competition at training, competition drives out the best in people. No-one ever gets comfortable. You’ve got to go out and perform week in, week out. So that's a big factor. But you also understand that injuries are just part of the game.

“They’re going to happen. So the more bodies you have available, then the impact of those injuries aren’t so severe. It’s when you get two or three backed up where you start to get yourself in a bit of trouble. And at this stage, we’re not in that boat.”

Munster do look set to be without Shane Daly, who was removed for a concussion after 10 minutes against Cardiff, but there was much for McMillan to admire in the way his side rebounded from a shaky start to come from 5-0, 10-5 and 15-12 down in the opening hour through tries from Ruadhan Quinn, Gavin Coombes and Diarmuid Barron.

It needed Jack Crowley’s boot to finish the job, though, and see off a dogged Cardiff effort in the final quarter. In difficult conditions for the kickers, the Welshman failed to convert their four tries, including three for wing Tom Bowen. But Crowley kicked the only two-pointer of the night on 53 minutes to open a shortlived 12-10 lead. And when there was no margin for error, the fly-half came up with telling kicks, a penalty and then drop goal to give his side a cushion at 23-15. Bowen completed his hat-trick in the last minute to claim a losing bonus point for the visitors.

“He made an instant impression last week,” McMillan said of Crowley, “came on and had some really nice touches. Today was his first start for a little while and I just think, you know, when you’re running the ship, as experienced as he is, it just takes a little time to get into the rhythm and flow of a game.

“He certainly had some special moments, courageous enough or smart enough, whichever way you want to look at it, to sit back in the pocket and nail that drop goal under a lot of pressure, which pushed it out to eight points and effectively in the game was a big moment. He had a couple of nice line breaks.

“But like everyone else, we’ve all got things to work on in the game, and he’d be no different.”

A lot to be satisfied with, much more room for improvement. It applies across the board for Munster as this season begins to gather pace.

MUNSTER: B O'Connor; S Daly (S O'Brien, 10 - HIA), D Kelly, A Nankivell, T Abrahams; J Crowley (T Butler, 77), E Coughlan (P Patterson, 54), J Loughman (J Wycherley, 57), N Scannell – captain (D Barron, 24-38 – blood & h-t), O Jager (R Foxe, 70); J Kleyn, F Wycherley (B Gleeson, 57); T Ahern, R Quinn (J O'Donoghue, 54), G Coombes.

Yellow card: G Coombes 39-49

CARDIFF: J Beetham; J Adams (S Emanuel, 76), H Millard, R Jennings, T Bowen; C Sheedy (I Lloyd, 65), J Mulder (A Davies, 67); D Southworth (R Barratt, 54), L Belcher – captain (D Hughes, 44), J Sebastian (S Wainwright, 65); J McNally, T Williams; A Mann (B Donnell, 58), D Thomas (T Basham, 58), A Lawrence Yellow card: J McNally 10-20

Referee: Griffin Colby (South Africa)