Clayton McMillan doesn't want Munster to put big European games on a pedestal ahead of Toulon clash

CONSISTENCY ACROSS COMPETITIONS: Clayton McMillan gets the excitement Champions Cup rugby generates in Munster players and supporters but as two charter planes of the Red Army prepare for take-off to Toulon on Saturday morning the head coach appears uncomfortable with emphasise placed on European competition compared to the province’s URC campaign. Picture: ©INPHO/Ryan Byrne

Clayton McMillan gets the excitement Champions Cup rugby generates in Munster players and supporters but as two charter planes of the Red Army prepare for take-off to Toulon on Saturday morning the head coach appears uncomfortable with emphasise placed on European competition compared to the province’s URC campaign.

It is a theme which surfaced in public in Belfast eight days earlier after Munster had delivered their worst performance of McMillan’s early tenure following the New Zealander’s move from Super Rugby’s Chiefs this summer. The dust had not yet settled on a miserable 28-3 league defeat to Ulster which sent his side down to sixth in the table having started the Round Nine weekend in second place and as the post-match press conference proceeded, his matchday captain Diarmuid Barron was asked about what was to come. 

The hooker spoke of his “pure excitement” at the return to the Champions Cup pool campaign in the south of France, an expected response from a Munster man bred on stories of Heineken Cup glory, yet when he finished, McMillan picked up the baton without a prompt from the assembled media and offered a fresh perspective.

The crux of his take was that: “We can't get excited when we're playing on a big stage in front of big crowds in the European Cup and then not show up on other nights when it's half-snowing, it's a five, six-hour bus trip away from where we are. These are the nights where we actually need to front up, and that's what disappoints me,” the Kiwi said and he returned to the subject following his team announcement for the Stade Felix Mayol challenge on Friday afternoon, his first encounter as boss on French soil.

“There's obviously a huge amount of excitement around European games, but I said it after last week, I understand the importance of Europe, there's a huge buzz around it, but also our challenge is to ensure that we don't put those big games on such a pedestal that the other games that we have every other week, we lose a sense of purpose in comparison.

“We're not good enough at the moment to be thinking that way. We actually need to approach every week in isolation and prepare for each team to be at their best and know that we need to be somewhere near our best to win those games.

"I do love the bounce between competitions. I love playing different teams who obviously play differently, referee differently, different crowds, different cultures. It's an amazing part of this competition.

“But I'd be lying if I said that as a coach I feel the same about every game and want us to approach it the same way.” 

McMillan, as evidenced by the strength of the team he named on Friday, is a Champions Cup fan and he is not shocked by the level of hype that surrounds the tournament.

“It hasn't surprised me. It is a cool competition. You can be on the other side of the world and you still get a sense of the occasion and how important the rugby is. It's a brilliant competition.

“As I said, just my mindset is around every game we need to be somewhere near our best to actually win. I get the natural excitement around Europe, around derby games. 

“But as I said from day one, our challenges at this stage with the squad I think are around meeting our threshold and trying not to fall too far from that. There have been days when we've let ourselves down.” 

McMillan’s first European fixture was one such occasion, a 40-14 hammering by Bath after his side’s early implosion and concession of a try bonus point and 28-0 lead inside the first 19 minutes gave his team a mountain to climb for the ensuing 61 minutes. The fallout form that was a commitment for coaches and players to make amends with the travelling supporters who had backed them at The Rec in such high numbers.

A special afternoon in Toulon would more than atone but McMillan said: “We haven't talked about it a lot, specifically around the supporters. I think we always go out every week trying to make them proud of the performance.

“I think we'd just be disappointed off the back of last week if there wasn't some sort of response. I think people, Munster supporters, even if you lose, will appreciate that as long as you do that, going down, fighting, and that's what we haven't done on a couple of occasions this year, which is disappointing.”