Munster have 'things to tidy up' but won't be going back to drawing board

Munster stayed at a spa hotel on the idyllic Île de Ré during their trip to France, just over the bridge from La Rochelle. Ronan O’Gara gave his former province the run of his club’s training facilities

Munster head coach Clayton McMillan said his side's trip to France had been "really positive". Pic: ©INPHO/Nick Elliott

Clayton McMillan ended Munster’s pre-season trip to France confident his squad are progressing in the right direction towards a positive start to the 2026-27 campaign, despite a 47-26 defeat at La Rochelle.

There will be one more pre-season fixture to play before the opening round of the URC campaign against Glasgow Warriors at Thomond Park on September 26. Leicester Tigers come to Cork’s Virgin Media Park on Friday, September 18, while McMillan will stage an internal 15-a-side match in advance of that to build further minutes into his players.

Friday night’s loss to Ronan O’Gara’s men at a sold-out Stade Marcel-Deflandre was as entertaining as one could expect from two squads at very different stages of their preparations for the season ahead. Both O’Gara and McMillan, nine days and four weeks out respectively from their opening competitive fixtures, fielded 30-plus players over 80 minutes of what was inevitably a fragmented affair.

For La Rochelle there was a victory, by seven tries to four in the plus column to add to their previous week’s 40-38 friendly win over back-to-back Champions Cup winners Bordeaux-Begles, yet O’Gara lost another experienced centre, Jules Favre, a fifth injury absentee from midfield ahead of their season opener at home to Toulouse next Sunday. He was also a little concerned that his less experienced, first-half XV outshone their senior colleagues, who started the second half, by outscoring them six tries to one.

That Munster bettered their hosts in the second half having trailed 40-12 at the interval was certainly a positive for McMillan after his players, having scored in the opening minutes through Gavin Coombes, rallied from a loose opening quarter in which they conceded possession too easily and were punished time and again on the counter-attack.

Hooker Lee Barron in the first half, a penalty try early in the second, followed by a sharply executed strike play finished by No. 8 Brian Gleeson were all evidence of an effective maul which a heavyweight La Rochelle pack failed to deal with and enabled the Munster head coach to look back on the previous week in favourable light.

Munster had stayed at a spa hotel on the idyllic Île de Ré, over the bridge from La Rochelle and O’Gara had given his former province the run of his club’s training facilities, the rival squads and coaching teams even lunching together on Thursday in a refreshing exchange of ideas and respect.

The Munster and La Rochelle squads and coaching teams had lunch and an exchange of ideas of Thursday before their pre-season game. Pic: ©INPHO/Nick Elliott

Back at home at Munster’s High Performance Centre at the University of Limerick, meanwhile, a number of frontline players, Jack Crowley excluded, are nearing their recoveries from summer surgeries and will be expected back in squad training at various stages over the next six weeks or so.

“Really positive,” McMillan said of Munster’s trip to France. “I think it's been a positive pre-season, and this was something that was on the calendar that everyone was looking forward to.

“We got a good training day in on Monday, and we're disappointed that we had to leave a number of the squad at home, but we know that's in the best interest of themselves and the squad to get ready for when things get real.

“But it's been a great week to just come over here and it's been good weather, great opportunity to connect. You just get a little bit more one-on-one time with people that you don't necessarily get when you're in the grind at work.” 

La Rochelle’s ease in exposing defensive frailties in transition was the chief annoyance for the Munster boss but he insisted no major alarm bells had been rung at this point in the pre-season campaign.

“Just transition ones, loose ones. A loose carry, turn the ball over, they counter-attack, they're dangerous at that. We give a silly penalty away, they take a quick tap, we're slow to react. Lots of contestable kicks that we get a hand to, but we're slow to win the scraps. They get a fortuitous bounce in, they score at the other end.

“Those are things that when you get into a little bit of a rhythm, you'd hope that you're going to be a lot tighter around it.

“But the good parts of what we did tonight were encouraging. There wasn't anything that was, for me, that was a massive red flag out of the game. I think we looked fit enough for this stage of the season, and like I said, the things that we probably put a bit of a spotlight on, on the pre-season, we got some good rewards.

“So we've got things to tidy up, but nothing that I think we have to go back to the drawing board about.” McMillan added: “The competitor in you always is disappointed with losing, but we've got to be realistic about it. I don't know if that's their second or third game on the bounce, so I imagine if we were to play next week we'd be better for the experience too.

“When we turn our attention to the things that we actually want to see some evidence of, I think we've got that. In that regard, I'm pretty happy and we didn't get any significant injuries too."