Time for Munster to embrace a new Challenge after Castres low

NEW CHALLENGE: Munster's Diarmuid Barron in the dressing room. Pic: ©INPHO/Dan Sheridan

Bits of brick have been chipped off it for over a decade now, and a structural engineer might go as far as to question its basic integrity, but the Champions Cup remains the foundation stone on which the provinces’ seasons still stand.

Leinster are obsessed with winning it, Connacht and Ulster are desperate to get back into it. Now Munster, the club that did more than any other to embed the tournament into the national consciousness, find themselves on the outside looking in.

Only four days have passed since the defeat to Castres in Limerick. It will cloud the remainder of their campaign, sticking in their craw even as they pick at the other offerings on their plate, and starting with the URC visit of Dragons to Cork this Friday.

“Yeah, [the mood is] not great, but things like this happen in sport, and if you think it is all going to be linear and all good, sunshine and rainbows, you’re in the wrong sport,” said Diarmuid Barron.

“There’s times you get things right and there’s times you don’t and we haven’t gotten it right in the Champions Cup this year and that's disappointing.

“But we've got to learn. In terms of the mood, I don't think we've any option but to try and move on and dust ourselves down and it's a tight group here. We're really looking after each other.

"It's important we look after each other, and that's been part of the team this morning, that we haven't been good enough, but we're all in it together.”

Munster will follow the Dragons game with a trip to Glagsow before the club season goes into a brief period of hibernation that Clayton McMillan has already signalled will be used as a chance to take breath and evolve the project further.

There is a home tie against Zebre at the end of February and the two-game tour to South Africa where they will face the Sharks and the Bulls. Then the consequences of last week’s loss, the Challenge Cup tie away to Exeter Chiefs, will again hit them flush in the face again.

It’s not a run of fixtures that will give the most avid fan goosebumps, but the Challenge Cup, even if it is in a worse state than it’s big brother, should still be used as a carrot rather than a stick for an organisation that can’t be choosy about the prizes on offer.

In fairness, they’ve said as much this week.

Excellent Clermont Auvergne, Stade Francais and Biarritz sides all came up short on their European ambitions down the years, but all found some consolation in winning the Challenge Cup. Bath added it to their Prem title last season.

Four of the five French teams in it now sit in the upper half of the Top 14 table, Ulster and Connacht have home ties next, while the Sharks won this just two years ago. It has its value, and more teams will see that the closer it comes to finals weekend in Bilbao.

Go back to 2013 and a Leinster team still brimming with multi-Heineken Cup medallists converted a pool exit into a successful Amlin – as it was at the time – run that ended with a fine evening against Stade at the RDS.

No-one is saying that those medals have pride of place in anyone’s hallways or studies now, but that run saw young, uncapped Irish players like Ian Madigan and Jack McGrath rise in prominence. It was a time when Devin Toner’s game started to hit a new level.

Madigan was actually electric in those few months, filling in at out-half for an injured Johnny Sexton and then converting to inside-centre where he scored the opening try in the final. He was a Test player that summer, as was McGrath.

Munster now are in a very different position personnel-wise to Leinster back then but they do have a batch of young players coming through that could be options for greater exposure and a few Challenge Cup games might do wonders for them.

Look no further than Edwin Edogbo, superb off the bench against Catres when scoring two tries, and Brian Gleeson for starters. These are players who need more minutes. If those are knockout rugby minutes then so much the better.

“There's loads of talent coming through,” said Barron. “The likes of Edwin and Brian and a few others are a shining light. There is positives to be taken from the last few weeks, as gutting as the weekend was.

“We can be a bit doom and gloom in Ireland with things, and think they’re worse than they are at times. There is stuff definitely to take confidence from. Edwin was fantastic at the weekend when he came on.”