Clayton McMillan: 'This week has been as good as any in terms of preparation'

Munster's Mike Haley and Jack Crowley race. Pic: Morgan Treacy/Inpho

There was a brief moment, earlier in the week, when all Clayton McMillan had to worry about was his team’s capability to turn their season around with a victory in Treviso on Saturday afternoon.

Munster’s hosts Benetton offered plenty to occupy the head coach’s mind in the wake of three successive away defeats, the latter marking their exit from the Challenge Cup at the Round of 16 stage. 

Now the season all hinges on making the URC play-offs and with it returning to the Champions Cup for next season. A top-eight finish is the requirement, and despite a back-to-back defeats in South Africa, Munster’s fate remains in their own gift. 

As the head coach said himself on Thursday: “It's a congested table and we could finish anywhere from the top couple to the bottom few. We know where we want to be but we've got to go and earn that.”

If Munster allow the outside noise that has accompanied them across the latter half of this week to infiltrate their very specific task at Stadio Monigo, the pressure will ramp up considerably. 

Controversy has engulfed the announcement that McMillan’s Chiefs attack coach Roger Randle was quitting the Super Rugby outfit to rejoin his former boss as Bath-bound Mike Prendergast’s replacement for next season while speculation in the French media has forwards coach Alex Codling set to also exit, for Toulon when his contract is up this summer.

“To be perfectly honest, you know about as much as I know,” McMillan said when addressing his forwards coach’s future. “I'm sure you can appreciate that our focus really as a coaching group has been around making sure that we get the performance side sorted.

“And then there's been a lot going on, clearly, in the last 48 hours that has consumed a lot of people's time in the building. So will we get a chance? Obviously over the next couple of days as we venture over to Italy, I'll sit down with Alex and we'll get some clarity on that.” 

As McMillan referenced, the focus has to remain on the controllables and putting in a performance to get the play-off bid back on track and he praised his players for not being distracted by off-field developments, not least the voluntary redundancies being sought among their non-professional rugby colleagues inside Munster Rugby.

"I've been really impressed with the group as I always am. The position we are in is not one we enjoy being in, there are a lot of people in this organisation, players included, who are doing everything in their capacity to improve our fortunes.

"This week has been as good as any in terms of preparation and ability to just focus on what we can do and control to get the performance and outcome we need.

"Of course there's an awareness, a lot of noise in and around the group, but I'm really proud of how the group has responded."

Speaking before the news of his possible departure broke, Codling outlined the size of the task facing Munster on Saturday afternoon, a challenge underlined by Benetton’s team announcement, featuring the backbone of Italy’s impressive Six Nations campaign just past.

“I think you're always on, you've got to be a paranoid defender in a sense they can score from anywhere,” Codling said. “So just because you're not in the immediate proximity of the ball doesn't mean you're not in the defensive line or you don't need to be on your toes.

“They can score coast to coast very quickly, they've obviously got an outstanding set of ball players and they love to offload. So for us it's making sure we're on our game, we're disciplined.

“We stop the entries into our 22, that's the first thing, and secondly around defence making sure we stay alive because once they get the offloading going, that’s the best way of breaking defence, through you not around you.

“They are things we've looked at, and we've got to be on high alert. We know they're a good side, we respect them, but we also know that we can bring our own threats so that's our aim for the weekend.” 

Codling highlighted Munster’s recent ill-discipline in terms of soft penalties leading to the concession of soft scores as the focus for improvement from the last three performances at the Sharks (45-0), Bulls (34-31) and Exeter Chiefs (31-21) but the forwards coach didn’t stop there.

“Also score zone when we get into opposition 22, we've not been as clinical as we want. So that's a big focus for us this week. 

"Because you can have all the pressure in the world, and you look at statistics, and we've had more entries, but ultimately when we get there, it's just those little bits and pieces being held up over the line, little mistakes.

“Nobody makes those deliberately. We've just got to make sure we alleviate as many as we can.” 

BENETTON: M Gallagher; L Lynagh, T Menoncello, M Fekitoa, P Odogwu; J Umaga, A Garbisi; D Aminu, N Gasperini, M Gallorini; G Marini, F Ruzza; S Negri, M Lamaro - captain, L Cannone.

Replacements: B Bernasconi, I Nemer, T Pasquali, R Favretto, J Kingi, A Izekor, A Uren, L Marin.

MUNSTER: S Daly; C Nash, T Farrell, A Nankivell, A Smith; J Crowley, C Casey; J Loughman, D Barron, M Ala’alatoa; J Kleyn, T Beirne - captain; T Ahern, J Hodnett, G Coombes.

Replacements: L Barron, M Milne, O Jager, E Edogbo, B Gleeson, B O’Donovan, D Kelly, A Kendellen.

Referee: Ben Whitehouse (Wales).