Clayton McMillan taking glass half-full approach to Munster's season so far

Munster head coach Clayton McMillan. Pic: James Crombie/Inpho

Take a look at the URC table and you wouldn’t be all that wild with Munster’s start to the season.

Clayton McMillan’s side sits on the ninth rung, behind Connacht by virtue of the fact that they have won just one league game out of four compared to their neighbours’ pair of victories. That’s one place outside the playoffs and a Champions Cup spot.

Those numbers could very easily be better, or worse.

Glasgow were allowed back into the season opener at Thomond Park and left with a win. 

Ulster were 21 points adrift at half-time in Belfast and battled back to claim a draw. Leinster were led by 13 in Dublin last Saturday before Munster clawed back for a losing bonus point.

“Every point's going to be important,” said McMillan. “The consolation out of the game on the weekend was that we at least walked away with something and the difference of that one point moved us from 12th or 13th on the table to ninth or eighth equal.

“So it looks a very congested table, and I don't imagine that at any stage this season people are going to have the liberty of being able to take their foot off the pedal and take things easy. Every point is valuable.” 

If there was an instrument to measure optimism in the way we can results then Munster would be much higher up that ladder. They have shown inarguable signs of progress despite what has been a significant injury roster.

The returns on to the bench of Edwin Edogbo and Lee Barron for the first time this season should be followed by the availability of more bodies after the upcoming November break and McMillan’s rotation policy has helped in spread the workload around.

The Kiwi has made eight changes to the XV for the Sharks visit to Limerick.

Rob Russell, the former Leinster and Gloucester wing, gets a debut having joined as injury cover. Academy centre Gordon Wood gets a first start after three runs off the bench. Ben O’Donovan, JJ Hanrahan, Evan O’Connell, Seán Edogbo and Brian Gleeson also come in.

That’s another sprinkling of youth as the province looks to build on the end to the Leinster game where they struck for an injury-time losing bonus point having started so well and spent all the second-half hanging tough.

“Again, lots of young guys are getting opportunities, but we put them under a lot of pressure for parts of the game. The game never got beyond us. It was always there or thereabouts. I felt like we were hard to score against.” 

The team’s habit of fading away in the second half has been noted. McMillan was right to highlight the quality of the opposition they have faced but the coaches have worked on generating more bench impact and on the messaging being given.

Munster's Gordon Wood is tackled by Leinster's Joey Carbery. Pic: Nick Elliott/Inpho

This is an off-Broadway weekend for the URC, what with the November Tests approaching and Ireland’s best players already sequestered in Dublin in preparation for four successive internationals, but Saturday’s visit of the Sharks to Thomond Park still feels big.

Win that and Munster can sign off this tough opening bloc on a high. Come up short and the five-week gap between that and their next fixture, away to Zebre in early December, will be beset by more concerning thoughts.

That may be unfair, and simplistic, but that’s how it is.

“It feels like every game's been a big game,” said the head coach. “If I look back on the last six weeks, we aren't happy with where we sit. We know that we've put ourselves in position to win a few more games than what we've done, but we've had some challenges around availability in our own squad.

“We've played some very good teams: Glasgow, the Bulls, Leinster, Ulster, and some of them away from home, and handled ourselves pretty well under all of those circumstances. So if you look at it through the glass half-full lens, then there's a lot to be positive about.

“We need to finish this week off well, and this is a pretty impressive Sharks team that looks to have grown a lot this season, off the back of what we saw last season. It’s a more rounded squad, one that's probably really clear on the way that they want to play.

“They have an incredible profile of players, some big athletes who just challenge you from setpiece to counter-attack. So we anticipate that we're going to be playing their best side, and we'll need to be somewhere near our best to give them a good run for their money.”