Dan Kelly: 'You never walk in on a Monday and think you're getting picked'

The Reds travel to Belfast to take on Ulster today.

Dan Kelly, Jack Crowley and Senior Athletic Performance Coach Peter Donnelly during training this week. Pic: INPHO/Ben Brady

A year and change since Dan Kelly made his Munster debut and he feels very much at home. He knew at least eight of the squad since his time with the Ireland U20s and the team’s fast start last term mirrored his own before injury slowed things down.

“It’s been seamless,” he says ahead of today’s game against Ulster in Belfast.

Kelly played just under a hundred games for Leicester Tigers before coming over. He has loved the contrasts in styles that make up the URC, but ask him to land on one main difference between this and life in the PREM and it’s the travel.

The longest journey Tigers faced was Exeter, just under four hours. This weekend’s by road would exceed that by a handful of minutes, and the hours only accumulate when they have to get on a plane. South Africa? Great. Northern Italy in deep winter? Hmmm.

“You come in on a Monday after you've been traveling, you're playing Saturday. You've travelled all the way home Sunday, then you're back in Monday to turn around for a Friday night game. It's hard, but that's why you do it, don't you?” The summer was spent well. He went to Ibiza with Shane Daly, Alex Nankivell and all their partners, watched his brother play at the Junior World Cup, saw his sister graduate, and worked on a golf handicap that is hovering between five and six.

The focus now is on his own game and, specifically, his own strengths.

His dad, also called Dan and a man with a CV in both league and union, has stressed this point to him. So has Clayton McMillan. ‘Why am I in the building’, he asked himself. The answer? Contact, carrying, covering cracks. The unseen stuff.

If he has had a failing in recent years then he feels it is a tendency to stretch himself too thin. Work on everything else, for sure, but a USP is invaluable, irreplicable, and Kelly is operating in an area where Munster has generated serious competition.

Their last two players of the years, Tom Farrell and Alex Nankivell, are midfielders. Sean O’Brien is getting good game time. Gordon Wood is part of the next generation putting a hand up. Minutes will be hard earned again this term.

“You never walk in on a Monday and think you're getting picked, which is great. It pushes you on, and you can't stop for a minute in this place. You can't. That might sound bad, but it's not. It's bringing the best out of me anyway.” The grand ambition is unchanged, to play senior rugby for Ireland.

“It's on me as a player if I get the opportunity to play. It comes down to what you do here.” 

As for Munster, he takes his cap off to those youngsters who have impressed in recent weeks. Wood has already left hic calling card with his teak toughness. Not just in games but on the training paddock at UL. Charlie’s Shea’s confidence has caught his eye too.

Kelly is old enough and experienced enough to know how notable these first steps are. And young enough at 25 to remember how daunting it felt when making his own debut for the Tigers against Gloucester alongside two legends of the English game.

“I ran on the pitch with Ben Youngs and George Ford. It was a bit of a "fuck me" moment. Jesus, like, a kid from North Manchester shouldn't be doing stuff like this. And you go like, ‘no, someone's got to do it’.” That’s the attitude he sees, and feels so encouraged by, now.

“In their heads, the lads taking a step forward don’t see themselves as kids, and that's the best thing. When you break through young, you've got to have a bit about you, and they do. They all do. We've got such good lads coming through, and it is definitely pushing it on.

“I won't even call myself senior because I want to be a young lad still, but it's pushing that older cohort on, and everything's just pushing forward. So if you get young lads coming through, then it makes it such a better environment. Training is more competitive.

“You're getting more out of your training, and that just transfers into a weekend, and it's a momentum game. You train better, you play better. You play better, you train better, and it's just momentum. It's a hard thing to stop when you've got a good system going.” A win at the Affidea Stadium today would add serious steam to their season.

Kelly started last January’s game at the same stadium when Munster lost 28-3 on a day that was one of the absolute low points in a season that had far too many of them. It’s a game that has been referenced in the Limerick HPC this week.

More than a few takes had it that Munster were simply bullied that day. Kelly’s take is that the mentality has to be there to commit to what will be an attritional evening. Claim a win and the return journey will whizz by.