Fineen Wycherley wary of complacency as McMillan's side look to step up for Croke Park clash

Wed, 15 Oct, 2025 - 01:00

Simon Lewis

For all the cold-blooded preparation and slavery to the process that consumes the modern-day professional rugby player, there is something about an interprovincial derby that sets even the most clinically focused athlete on edge.

Put that derby inside Croke Park and that edge is honed a little sharper still, despite the platitudes and respect being displayed both Munster and Leinster camps ahead of their URC dust-up at GAA Headquarters this Saturday.

“These weeks are different, all right. We try not to make it, but it just happens,” Munster’s Fineen Wycherley admitted this week. “We know what's on the line and we know we're playing and the history behind it and how important it is to us and how important it is to them.

“So it does naturally happen. It's not that we earmark this as more important, obviously it's just another league game for points and things like that. But naturally, there's just a bit more edge and a bit more excitement around the building.

“Obviously, in the public and stuff, the amount of people that are travelling up and family members and stuff that are all coming out of the woodwork looking for tickets.”

The Munster management led by head coach Clayton McMillan are aware of the pitfalls of not finding the right emotional pitch for such a fixture.

Wycherley described Monday’s return to training following Friday night’s 20-19 victory over Edinburgh in Cork as “very low-key... getting through a lot of detail and stuff like that. But as the week goes on, it'll ramp up. You can get too emotionally driven too early on in the week and that can take away from performances. You just need to get that balance right.

“To be fair to the coaches, they're excellent at that. With the leadership group and stuff like that, they're very good at tailoring that emotion until later on in the week and come Saturday, hopefully, we'll get the job done.”

The lock from Bantry, West Cork was praised by McMillan for his leadership following the Edinburgh win in which he scored the game-clinching try in a tight contest for a bonus-point victory to make it three wins from three at the start of 2025-26. Two months shy of his 28th birthday and with 133 appearances for his province already, it is a trait perhaps not appreciated outside the Munster camp yet Wycherley has been calling lineouts for the past two years alongside captain Tadhg Beirne and though leadership may not be a natural fit, the nature of such a task has meant a natural evolution into the role.

“I wouldn't have been a lineout caller when I was younger, and obviously I learned from the likes of Billy (Holland) and stuff like that and how they used to manage it. You don't really, per se, have to be a leader but you naturally fall into that category because you need to know everyone's role and you need to know your own role, and you're constantly talking as the game's going on, making decisions with 10s and captains and stuff like that.

“Even reviewing meetings, like we're reviewing from today, you take a lot of ownership on yourself, so then you're naturally leading and you're constantly talking throughout the week - what we need to do, what we need to exploit, obviously going to Leinster this week, what we need to do against them to get the win up there and things like that.

“It’s not that you are forced into it, but you just naturally end up in that kind of leader aspect.”

Wycherley may well cede the lineout calling duties to the returning Beirne this Saturday. He was not meant to play last weekend until a head knock in training befell Tom Ahern and he was thrown back into second row partnership with Jean Kleyn for the third match in succession as all around were being rotated by McMillan as he casts his eye over the squad he inherited on his arrival from New Zealand during the summer.

A cast of 35 players has delivered Munster’s winning start, which makes for a good place to be heading to Croke Park this weekend, despite McMillan’s team not hitting its straps yet.

“You can look at it in a negative way but the reality is that every other team in the league would like to be where we are,” Wycherley said.

“It doesn’t take the pressure off, because you still want to be achieving everything we are achieving now but it does give you a bit more comfort, starting the way we are starting.

“Going into Leinster, we have discussed the fact we are three from three but that doesn’t mean we are complacent because there are a lot of things we need to improve on. A lot of things that have been working well, but a lot of things that have let us down as well around game management and things like that in certain games. So just getting more consistency around our set-piece would be massive as well going into this weekend as well.

“That will give us more foothold. These are the things we’ve been discussing. We’re happy where we are at but there are a lot more things we can work on. It’s just not getting complacent.”