McMillan praises Irish internationals for fronting up to testing two-game South African tour
PRODIGAL SONS: Tom Farrell and Craig Casey in Ireland training. Pic: Ben Brady/Inpho
Clayton McMillan praised his Ireland international energy givers for fronting up for a testing two-game tour to South Africa as Munster look to kickstart their push for the United Rugby Championship play-offs against the Sharks in Durban this Saturday.
Munster also play the Bulls at altitude in Pretoria seven days later as the press to consolidate their place inside the top eight to qualify for the play-off rounds at the end of the regular season.
A top-four finish would secure a home draw for the quarter-finals and currently sitting in sixth, six points off the leaders Glasgow Warriors, and nine points clear of ninth-placed Connacht, these next two games could prove pivotal to the success of McMillan’s maiden campaign as head coach.
He was able to select Michael Milne at loosehead prop and Tom Farrell at outside centre for this Saturday’s visit to Kings Park, a week on from the former’s appearance off the bench in the Six Nations victory over Scotland that delivered a Triple Crown.
Farrell had appeared off the bench in the previous round’s win over Wales while on the bench, Munster have lock Edwin Edogbo, a month after his Ireland debut against Italy, and uncapped training panellist Brian Gleeson as back-row cover.
With Craig Casey, Jack Crowley and a fit-again Jeremy Loughman set to join the tour later this week, only club captain Tadhg Beirne has been excused touring duties due to his Six Nations exertions and McMillan is delighted with his internationals’ commitment to the Munster cause.
“They always come back with good energy,” the head coach said on Thursday from his squad’s Durban base in uMhlanga. “It was tough on a couple, as you would expect, that they were part of the celebrations after the Triple Crown victory on the weekend but the communication between Munster and those individuals and the Irish management has been pretty clear.
“We had an expectation that a good handful of those players were going to front for us on Monday and fly out and may need to play this week. They've bounced into the week. There's been no sign of fatigue or the fact that they feel like they're missing out on a week’s break.
“We'll look after them as we do all of our players in terms of load but most of them, I think, are just energised to get out on the rugby field and clearly we've got Craig Casey, Jack Crowley and Jeremy Loughman, who’s coming back from a little bit of a ding. But they'll join us later in the weekend and they'll give us that same energy, I'm sure. So, yeah, they've been good.”
Munster’s quarter-final defeat to the Sharks at Kings Park in a goal-kick shootout following a 24-24 draw after extra time was the province’s most recent visit to Durban last May 31. McMillan, who joined as head coach last close season, was focused more on the task ahead, pointing to the hosts’ strong form on their own turf, despite their current league position of 11th.
“We're going to come up against a desperate side, just as we are. We're getting to the pointy end of the season where every point matters, and we want to walk away with the points just as much as they do. There's no easy task. They’ve won five out of the last six games at home, formidable there.”
He added: “We're well aware of what we're going to be walking into. We like to think that we're prepared accordingly over the last two months during the Six Nations period, because (it gives) every team the opportunity to look forward and anticipate conditions and teams that you're going to play in and what's required to hopefully have some momentum coming into the back end of the season.”
The former Chiefs head coach did not get the opportunity to tour South Africa following the break-up of Super Rugby post-Covid but is relishing the opportunity to experience the different challenges playing there presents, despite Munster’s own problems getting to Durban.
Arriving a day later than scheduled due to a cancelled flight from London to Johannesburg, McMillan praised the maturity of his squad in the way they dealt with the disruption.
“It's lovely to be able to come here with Munster.
“We've had a really good trip here, although we had a little hiccup early on with a flight being cancelled, but we got here, trained well today, looking forward to the fixture.
“Obviously a bit of a disruption, and that's not something that is fairly common practice, first cancelled international flight I think I've been a part of, so a slightly new experience, but we did fly out of Shannon, so when the flight was cancelled it was a 20-minute drive back to Limerick and in your own bed for the night and then just repeated the process the next day, so it didn't have a huge effect on what we had planned in terms of training.
“I thought the guys showed a lot of maturity around just getting on with it, and like I said, we're here now, it’s a happy group and we’ve had a good training day.”
There are six changes in total to the side which started last time out, a hard-fought 21-7 win over Zebre Parma at Thomond Park on February 28, with fly-half JJ Hanrahan captaining his province for the first time. Ethan Coughlan comes in at scrum-half and along with full-half Mike Haley in the absence of bench cover with a 6:2 split will provide options as an auxiliary number 10 in the event.
Lock Tom Ahern, flanker John Hodnett and centre Alex Nankivell have all recovered from injury to start while hooker Diarmuid Barron and Academy flanker Seán Edogbo also come into the starting XV.
Milne and Farrell both faced Zebre in round 12 between Six Nations matches, as did Edwin Edogbo off the bench.
Mike Haley; Calvin Nash, Tom Farrell, Alex Nankivell, Shane Daly; JJ Hanrahan - captain, Ethan Coughlan; Michael Milne, Diarmuid Barron, Michael Ala’alatoa; Jean Kleyn, Tom Ahern; Seán Edogbo, John Hodnett, Gavin Coombes.
Lee Barron, Josh Wycherley, John Ryan, Edwin Edogbo, Fineen Wycherley, Paddy Patterson, Dan Kelly, Brian Gleeson.
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