McMillan heaps praise on Munster captain Beirne after stellar Croker performance 

Munster's Tadhg Beirne and Craig Casey celebrate. Pic: Tom Maher/Inpho

Clayton McMillan praised captain Tadhg Beirne for epitomising Munster’s derby-winning performance and said his team could be proud of the way they scored an emphatic 31-14 bonus-point URC victory over arch rivals Leinster on Saturday.

Munster came from 7-0 down after six minutes to score 31 unanswered points to stretch their winning start to the new campaign to four wins from four as they defeated Leinster for the first time since the 2023 URC semi-final and ended an 11-year run of away regular season defeats to the Boys in Blue.

Having conceded scrum dominance and lineout drive try from Ronan Kelleher which was converted by Sam Prendergast, Munster rallied to a 21-7 half-time lead. 

That came thanks to tries from Brian Gleeson, Tom Farrell and a breakaway score from Ethan Coughlan, all converted by man of the match Jack Crowley in an eagerly anticipated fly-half duel with Ireland rival Prendergast.

A second-half Crowley penalty and a penalty try in the last 10 minutes secured the victory to the delight of the Munster contingent in a 51,859 crowd, before Leinster grabbed a consolation at the death with a Scott Penny converted try.

Yet it was Munster’s grit and determination in defence which proved the difference with captain Beirne leading the way, picking up where he left off with the British & Irish Lions as their player of the series in the 2-1 win over Australia during the summer to outshine his fellow tourists from Leinster in his first appearance of the season with three critical ruck turnovers and a similar number of disruptions at maul time.

“This guy is probably the epitome of somebody who's got a high ceiling in terms of his performances,” McMillan said as he joined Beirne in a post-match press conference at Croke Park.

“The roof is pretty high and you don't see too much of a dip in him. Our challenge as a team is to raise that floor so that the days between our bad performances and our good ones aren't so big.

“The last couple of weeks have been tough. We haven't been concerned looking at the points, the ladder and patting ourselves on the back. We wanted to be better in our performances, come off the field, look in the mirror and be proud of what we're producing. And today will be one of those days.” 

The New Zealander, who joined Munster from Super Rugby’s Chiefs this summer, said he was delighted with his side’s defensive effort in Dublin as they moved to the top of the URC table with 19 points from a possible 20 after four rounds.

“I thought it was outstanding,” McMillan said. “You can look into the heart and soul of a team, I think, by the way that they're prepared to fight for each other and defend.

“And Leinster are a quality side and they put us under a huge amount of pressure, they just keep standing up, and got over a couple of times, but even just the smarts to roll underneath and keep them off the ground.

“All of those little bits were very pleasing. The barometer or the line in the sand has been drawn now, and we just got to keep fighting to be at that level.” 

Beirne revealed a new aspect of pre-game preparations at Munster that has been introduced by the incoming head coach.

“Since Clayton has come in and everything, we focus on a theme for the week and we had a theme this week, we want to keep improving and the challenge is put to us at the start of the week of what we want to get out of it,” Beirne said. “And it was put to us this week and I thought we all stood up and achieved what we set out to do.”

Asked what the theme of Munster’s week had been, McMillan said: “I just wanted to make it a dogfight. Leinster are just too good a side that if you sit and wait and sort of give them a moment to impose their game on you, then you're going to be losing.

“So we needed to be in the scrap for everything and want to be the hunter, not the hunted.”