Inside Munster: Martyn Vercoe explains team manager role, player culture and season challenges

New Munster team manager outlines behind-the-scenes role, squad bonding methods and belief amid pressure for URC play-off qualification

OPEN ARMS: Munster team manager Martyn Vercoe during an open training session at Rockwell College.  Pic: ©INPHO/Ryan Byrne

The way Martyn Vercoe describes his job as Munster’s team manager, the New Zealander represents the glue that binds the province’s rugby professionals as a functioning unit.

Yet as he told the Irish Examiner in an interview 11 days ago, the South Island Kiwi would not want to say that, “because you don't want to sound arrogant”.

Instead, the 49-year-old supplies a different job description to the role he has performed since arriving from the Chiefs in Clayton McMillan’s slipstream nine months ago.

“Basically you're the communication and resource link between everybody, externally, internally,” Vercoe said. “You're the person that basically makes sure everybody's got what they need to be the best, that it's communicated, that everybody knows what they're doing.

“I like to think that you're the puppet master and not the puppet. So everybody basically knows what they're supposed to be doing, when they're supposed to be doing it and with the right resources so they've got no handbrake on them to succeed.

“That's in a real broad sense, but then you're a problem solver, you're a conduit, you're a link person as well… probably you're the person that outside of on the pitch, if things need to be solved, things get broken, there's a ‘beyond your control’, there's a process system that you can find a solution.

“You know, prime examples, we're heading over to South Africa the other week, the old engine light comes on the plane, you know, suddenly you've got a massive big beast that's having to not go in one direction and you've got to find a solution to get 40 or 50 people and a tonne of rugby gear to South Africa.” 

It should be made clear, the Irish Examiner met and spoke to Vercoe before Munster Rugby became embroiled in its present controversy over the appointment of Roger Randle as the province’s next attack coach from next season, subject to securing a work permit. The team manager may have offered a fresh insight into the former All Black and current Chiefs assistant coach in the centre of a tempest given both worked on Clayton McMillan’s ticket at the Super Rugby franchise between 2021 and 2025. Equally, and given Vercoe’s ongoing close working relationship with the boss, he may likely have shown the same resolute loyalty to Randle shown by the Munster head coach.

Yet Vercoe’s retelling of his own appointment to be Munster’s replacement for Niall O’Donovan a year ago is perhaps just as insightful and at odds with the way he was summoned to the Chiefs courtesy of a phone call from the CEO and told to turn up in Hamilton the following Monday.

“He wasn't central to the process of me coming,” he said of McMillan. “You still had to apply and be recognised as the best candidate. And he deliberately didn't do that because he wanted the club to get there by their own viewpoints and perspectives on who they wanted as a manager.

“So it was totally different to the Chiefs, believe it or not and actually that's the first time I've reflected on that is that, you know, I went to the Chiefs with a phone call, with this there was a process about it. It wasn't just because I was the man he wanted.

“He's really good like that. It was because he wanted the club to get to that point, I think.” 

Vercoe’s resume as a former coach with a postgraduate degree in sport management had given him a leg up into the team manager’s role at Nelson-based National Provincial Championship team Tasman Mako on the advice of ex-All Black, former schoolmate and fellow Blenheim native Leon MacDonald. It was in that post that he first came up against McMillan, then in charge of NPC rivals Bay of Plenty.

“We met as adversaries. He was at Bay of Plenty, I was at Tasman Mako, before we joined up at the Chiefs. I remember, probably about 2012 or 2013, playing Bay of Plenty, and they were in a division below us, sort of, but you played cross-division games, and they came, maybe 2015, to Nelson and were just a different team from the years, like real steel. I was like, ‘whoa’.

“I remember him as a player. He was sort of like quite a stout sort of No.8 for them when they had quite a good Ranfurly Shield team, 20 or 30 years ago now. He won't like me saying that because it makes him sound old. But you could see that staunchness in their team, and sometimes you look at that, and you think, ‘wow, who's in charge of them?’"

When McMillan joined the New Zealand Under-20s programme as a position-specific coach, Vercoe was the team manager and they have dovetailed ever since.

Nine months into their Munster tenure, and the Irish experience has not been as smooth sailing as the pair might have imagined. They welcome Ulster to Thomond Park on Saturday evening still needing, with three games of the regular campaign to play, to secure a top-eight URC finish that will ensure end of season knockout rugby and a place in next season’s Champions Cup.

It is put to Vercoe that 2025-26 has been a rollercoaster of a season, to which he countered: “Yeah, but you're always in any team, you have pressure and some massive games and stuff like that.

“So definitely, when you come to a new place, you're very motivated to promote change and good change and we're going to get there.

“And definitely just as positive as the day we arrived… and I think the rollercoaster's a by-product of the passion that everybody's got and the care, so that can't be a bad thing.” 

Part of that “good change” is Vercoe’s introduction of player interviews conducted by the team manager in front of the whole squad. Former Chief Alex Nankivell sensed the weekly session would follow the Marlborough man to Ireland and he described how they unfold.

“He chucks them up the front, sits next to them, and goes through a few different stories about their life or their upbringing, or things like that,” Nankivell said. “So he's a great man, and I know the lads have felt the same, that he's been awesome.” 

The interviews can be jokey, emotional, or both and there is a method to the grilling, as Vercoe explained.

“Basically, everybody's got a ‘why’: why they do something, why they'd meet somebody at the front gate, why they'd get up in the morning, and it's important that when you put your head on the pillow each night that you think about why's the reason you'd do anything.

“And there's such a big connection to the club, the players, the province. We just wanted to make sure that, and there is a really strong connection between the players, but that everybody knew each other really, really well here.

“So that could be another string to that ‘why’ or that reasoning why we'd get into a deep dark place. That's probably been one of the reasons that's hurt us at times this year, people were probably questioned whether that ‘why’ is enough or whether the stuff that we can control, the stuff that doesn't need talent, hasn’t been there? And it has, it just hasn't been reflected on the field. But it will do again, we'll get that back.

“Like, if you haven't got real clarity in what you're trying to do on the field, sometimes it looks as though you're not trying hard enough, whereas that's not the case. These players try as hard, they want it as much as everybody else, but you've just got to keep reminding yourself why you want it.

“So, what we do with that is we show everybody what everybody's about. If you're out there in a battle, rugby's a hard thing and if you're really tight with the person you're out there with then that helps, I think.

“Just so everybody gets to know each other really well. Because if you've got that real tight connection, I reckon that can be an extra two per cent on the field, and these are all things that we're working on, you know, and we'll get there.

“We're going to get there. Like, I don't think that's fool's gold, it will happen. Or we will get as much as we can out of the squad. That might be getting a certain result, but no stone will be unturned to get as much as we can out of this team.”