'It's important for the club': McMillan praises performances of Munster's young guns 

LEARNING HIS TRADE: Munster's Luke Murphy and Gavin Coombes celebrate after the game. Pic: Laszlo Geczo/Inpho

Clayton McMillan highlighted the performances of his young players as one of the major positives from Munster’s 31-28 victory over Argentina A.

A year on from engineering an All Blacks XV win at Thomond Park, the Munster head coach saw his new charges overcome a touring team in an entertaining and absorbing contest at the same stadium to extend his unbeaten start to six wins from six.

It was a night when McMillan handed debuts to a trio of forwards, starter Conor Ryan, and replacements Max Clein and Luke Murphy, while Ronan Foxe, Fionn Gibbons and Evan O’Connell made their first senior starts for the province.

It was 21-year-old lock O’Connell, the nephew of Munster great Paul O’Connell, who scored the first of Munster’s five tries on a night when he also called the lineout, while fly-half Tony Butler, 23, scored two tries and kicked three conversions in an accomplished performance as both academy graduates claimed their first five-pointers for the province.

Gavin Coombes and Sean O’Brien added second-half tries either side of Butler’s second, enough to see off a physical and ambitious Argentina side which had heavily defeated both Brazil and Romania during the summer.

“I've been really impressed with the effort that everybody in the squad has put in and a lot of the younger guys have done a huge amount to help set up the guys that play regularly to go out on a Saturday and perform,” McMillan said.

“You just can't deny them the opportunity to go out and play and it's taken five or six weeks to get there, but it was really pleasing, satisfying to give them that opportunity and enjoy themselves, express themselves and get a win.

“It's important for the club, it's important for our growth and creating depth, so there were so many positives I think that came out of tonight.” 

Munster's Conor Ryan, Max Clein and Luke Murphy after earning their first caps. Pic: Laszlo Geczo/Inpho

McMillan’s All Blacks XV had interrupted a recent winning streak against touring sides that had seen South Africa A and the Crusaders beaten at Cork’s Páirc Uí Chaoimh in recent seasons and the New Zealander was delighted to have secured a victory in front of 15,054 supporters on day of wall-to-wall Test rugby being aired on television.

“Twelve months ago I was in the other changing room and got a sense then for what rugby meant to the people of Munster,” McMillan said, “and also just how much they value playing international sides and that is a little bit of a luxury and one that we don't take for granted.

“It was fantastic, I think, to see a really good crowd turn up and there's a lot of other rugby on TV that’s going on at the moment, but I guess that is a reflection of how much playing these sorts of games means to the people of Munster.” 

It was far from a perfect performance with the Argentines, who fielded three Test-capped Pumas in flanker Nicolas D’Amorim, wing Santiago Pernas, centre Faustino Sanchez Valarolo, dominating the first quarter. Valarolo had opened the scoring, converted by Julian Hernandez, after 18 minutes.

It was the last they were in front, O’Connell and Butler’s tries giving the home side a 10-7 half-time lead, extended after the break by Coombes. Credit to Argentina, they stayed in the fight and exchanged tries with Munster throughout the second half. 

Hooker Leonel Oviedo finished a maul try on 50 minutes and Pernas replied to Butler’s second of the night but when full-back Tobias Wade added a fourth on 80 minutes following O’Brien’s 68th minute try, it was too late to alter the outcome.

McMillan was pleased his team learned some lessons on the hoof as they found a way to secure victory.

“I thought we were probably a little bit guilty at times of playing festival rugby and looking to score off every possession but when we respected the ball and got a bit of territory, we played some really good rugby.

“The really pleasing part was that a number of the other guys got exposed and a number of guys played their first game for Munster today, so that's all really pleasing. Mike Haley took a little bit of a rolled ankle, but we came out injury-free, so even better.”