'I wouldn't give a shit about who we play': McMillan unmoved by potential play-off opponents

Munster's Jack Crowley. Pic: Tom O’Hanlon/Inpho

Forget the permutations, Munster boss Clayton McMillan doesn’t care two hoots which side will be hosting his team in the URC quarter-finals at the end of the month. 

All the head coach cares about is getting there this weekend and having Jack Crowley back in the number 10 shirt at Thomond Park on Saturday night to face the Lions will be a massive confidence booster for him and the players.

With Glasgow Warriors, Stormers and defending champions Leinster the only teams safely into the last eight after 17 rounds of the regular season, places four to eight remain up for grabs with six teams still in the chase for the top-eight finish that guarantees not only knockout rugby over the next five weeks but Champions Cup qualification for 2026-27.

Munster head into the 18th and final round with their season still in the balance, sitting in sixth place within three points of the fourth-placed Bulls but also just two points clear of Connacht, the team in ninth. 

Everything hangs on the outcome of Saturday night’s clash against the fifth-placed Lions which is scheduled as the last game of the weekend. 

Direct rivals Cardiff, in seventh, Ulster, in eighth, and Connacht all play on Friday night while the Bulls kick off at home to 13th-placed Benetton at 3pm on Saturday, almost four hours ahead of Munster v Lions at 7:45pm, by which time the home side could well be home and hosed if results go their way, or kicking off in ninth and staring into the abyss of a premature end to the campaign and a place in the Challenge Cup pool stages next time around.

No wonder their head coach is indifferent about the permutations, a viewpoint he succinctly summarised on Tuesday at Munster’s High Performance Centre.

“I wouldn't give a shit about who we play next week or in two weeks' time,” McMillan said. “I just want to be there.

“We're aware of all the permutations but our mindset has to be that we need to just go and get our job done. We can't control how other teams prep. We can't control the outcomes of those games.

“We can have an influence around what we produce on Saturday, which needs to be better than what we produced last Saturday.” 

Despite the poor showing in Connacht’s 26-7 win over Munster at Dexcom Stadium last Saturday night, McMillan believes the return of Ireland fly-half Crowley to the starting line-up could raise belief levels within his squad.

Crowley has missed the last two matches since taking a bang in the warm-up of the home win over Ulster on April 25. 

He has since experienced intermittent losses of power in his leg which also kept him out of the trip to Connacht but his return to full training this week has McMillan cautiously optimistic.

“We never count our chickens before they’re hatched but it’s all looking very positive,” he said of Crowley, before adding: “The thing with Jack is he's got a lot of confidence around his game at the moment and that confidence is infectious.

“So people get confident by having other confident people around them and that's what he brings.”