Garry Ringrose braces for latest chapter of sibling rivalry with Munster

SUBLING RIVALRY: Leinster's Garry Ringrose is tackled by Munster's Tom Farrell. Pic: Brendan Moran/Sportsfile.

Test rugby players see things from a perspective we’ll never see. They travel the world together in a tailor-made crew, running down tunnels at some of the world’s most famous venues and face some of the game’s most legendary teams.

You’d wonder would the buzz of that fade.

Clermont Auvergne aren’t the team they once were. Leinster’s 25-point win against the Top 14 side was both an impressive statement of intent and a mark of how far the French giants have shrunk in domestic and European terms.

But the Stade Marcel Michelin still stands tall. Quite literally.

The tight, three-tiered bank of stands is all but unique in the club game and the opportunity to play at a venue and against a club that developed such a rivalry with Leinster down the years was a box that the province’s current generation felt privileged to tick.

“It's cool, yeah. It’s such a tough place to go, and almost an iconic stadium in club rugby in the world of rugby,” said Garry Ringrose. “So to have a positive experience there, yeah, not a lot of teams do. We'll take that.”

Ringrose was at a young and impressionable age when Leinster and Clermont were butting heads year after year, but Munster were more of a looming presence long before he came along and remain so now as the rivals prepare to meet again.

Even that history has been coloured lately.

Leinster have won 21 of the last 25 meetings between the sides, including the last, a five-point win in Thomond Park last Christmas, but it was Munster’s day by some stretch when they met in Dublin this time last year. This still matters. Hugely.

“With Munster and all the provinces, it's one you want to win and you know that they're thinking the exact same thing,” said Ringrose. “I heard someone describe it like a sibling rivalry that you want to win bad, almost more so than if you were playing someone else.

“So in some ways you have respect and love for the guys you're playing against, but you want to win badly, and then there's obviously the history of everything that we appreciate. Much like Clermont, growing up watching iconic games. That plays a part in it as well.”

The attention will concentrate in other corners of the field before kick-off.

Sam Prendergast and Charlie O’Shea have both shown sublime skills and mental strength so far this term. Munster’s scrum has been superb and the setpiece will be a massive focus. But midfield is its own crucible too.

Leinster have no Jordie Barrett or Rieko Ioane to consider for selection. So Ringrose will spend the club season being partnered by players who, like him, will be mindful of a World Cup approaching in a year’s time.

That’s probably a good thing for Ireland but, while he wouldn’t be engaged on that particular angle, he was more than happy to wax lyrical about players like Hugh Cooney, Charlie Tector, Jamie Osborne and Robbie Henshaw.

Osborne is a player who seems to be permanently on the cusp of making himself first-choice with his province and his country, but Ringrose’s praise for his versatility probably underlines why that hasn’t yet bene the case.

Henshaw’s case is fascinating. Injury has hindered him at times and, at 33, there was a danger that he might slip out of the spotlight as the likes of Osborne and, with Ireland, Stuart McCloskey assume preference but he isn’t going anywhere yet.

“Robbie's brilliant. The amount of work he gets through, and the fact that he was in South Africa (with Leinster last month) was able to play a bit of six and in the centre shows his ability in terms of ball carrying and the physical side of things.

“Getting the chance to play alongside him from a footballing perspective and putting guys into space and through holes and stuff, he's someone I have learned a load off and enjoy competing with and competing against as well because he can play 12 and 13.”

Munster’s strengths in the midfield are obvious given the fact that their last two players of the year – Tom Farrell and Alex Nankivell – are midfielders, while Dan Kelly’s signing last term from Leicester Tigers was superb business.

Ringrose remembers Leinster attack coach Andrew Goodman telling him how good Nankivell was when he arrived from their native New Zealand and Jack Crowley said similar about Kelly who he has been friends with since their shared days with the Ireland U20s.

“You see the other provinces as well,” said Ringrose, “how they're delivering from a centre's perspective. Munster obviously this week, but then seeing Connacht and Ulster too and the combinations that they've been delivering… It motivates you and it excites you.”