'Don't want to blow too much smoke up his backside': McMillan praises Munster rookie Charlie O’Shea

The 20-year-old from Cork guided Munster to their first victory of the URC campaign, a 26-22 bonus-point win over the Bulls in Limerick on Saturday night.

RISING STAR: Munster’s player of the match Charlie O’Shea with friends after the game. Pic: ©INPHO/James Crombie

Clayton McMillan praised a “phenomenal” match of the match performance from rookie fly-half Charlie O’Shea after the academy first-year guided Munster to their first victory of the URC campaign, a 26-22 bonus-point win over the Bulls in Limerick on Saturday night.

The 20-year-old from Cork, whom the Munster head coach handed a first competitive start after a debut off the bench in the opening 26-20 loss at home to Glasgow Warriors seven days earlier, scored two tries, provided a kick crossfield to assist Diarmuid Kilgallen for the opening try and added three conversions to cap a dream start to his professional career.

O’Shea, an Ireland Under-20 international, had impressed with a try-scoring start in pre-season against Leicester Tigers, but this was a different challenge altogether and he rose to the occasion against a South African powerhouse that had hammered Munster 45-14 in last season’s quarter-final at altitude in Pretoria less than five months earlier.

The UCC playmaker earned the praise of both head coach and matchday captain Craig Casey, his half-back partner with the way he grabbed the game by the scruff of the neck to deliver a first victory of the season in this round-two clash.

“Phenomenal,” McMillan said of O’Shea. “You don't want to blow too much smoke up his backside. It's the early days but he's had a couple of runs now and he's taken to it like a duck to water.

“A lot of confidence for a young man but it comes from doing the homework during the week and getting over what he knows the team needs him to do, and he's done that with aplomb.”

Casey, making his first appearance of the season on his delayed return following Ireland’s summer Nations Championship campaign in Australia and New Zealand, was impressed with how O’Shea was “so composed all week”.

“As an older statesman now I was kind of toying with, do I try and take over a bit, but I said during the week ‘just play your game Charlie and I'll feed off that, find your voice’, and my God he found his voice all week to be fair.

“He's a great kid, works very hard and so diligent and just feeds confidence to the rest of the group, so hats off to him, I thought he was awesome and he has been for the last six, seven weeks in pre-season as well. He's a very impressive kid.” McMillan also praised JJ Hanrahan for the way he took the fly-half reins from O’Shea on 70 minutes as the Reds prevented the visitors from completing a match-saving comeback in the final stages.

“Also it was good to see JJ come on, who's at the other end of his career and I think he put in two or three kicks that were pretty vital to put them on their back fence and they had to work their way out of the game late, so those things were pleasing.“

The Munster boss also praised his team’s collective performance with O’Shea’s tries bookended by scores from Kilgallen and replacement back-rower Alex Kendellen, negating the Bulls five-pointers from forwards Ruan Vermaak, Francois Klopper and Jeandre Rudolph, fly-half Curwin Bosch having added two conversions and a penalty to earn their side a losing bonus point.

McMillan cited a pep talk pre-match from former Munster hooker Jerry Flannery, now a Springboks assistant coach for inspiring his side’s dogged performance to see off the Bulls.

“We had Jerry Flannery come in yesterday to present the boys' jerseys at our captain's run, and the words he used were ‘dig in, just dig in, dig in in the good times, dig in in the bad times, dig in when you're tired’, and I thought that was pretty apt today.”

The head coach had seen Munster squander a 17-7 half-time lead in round one in a 26-20 loss at home to Glasgow and declared the playing group needed to raise their game to re-establish a connection with supporters after a testing last season. On Saturday, McMillan hoped this performance against the Bulls went some way to doing that.

“There was lots to like about last week's game, but it wasn't good enough to get us over the line. Tonight was another massive test and we didn't get it all perfect tonight either, but the areas that I thought were significantly better were our set-piece, our scrum was strong, for the most part our lineout was good.

“Brookesy (tighthead prop Kieran Brookes) at makeshift hooker probably had a couple he'd take back but that's the position we're in and it says a lot about him that he was prepared to jump in and fill that role.

“Lots of younger guys got a run, Gordy Wood (as a replacement centre) came onto the bench late, (lock) Evan O'Connell has had his third 80 minutes in a row, (flanker) Sean Edogbo, there's lots of young guys who we've been talking about as having potential and it speaks well for the future of Munster Rugby.

“But we're far from the finished product and we'll just keep beavering away.”