{"id":208317,"date":"2025-12-24T09:01:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-24T09:01:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/208317\/"},"modified":"2025-12-24T09:01:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-24T09:01:08","slug":"odonoghue-impressed-by-mcmillans-calm-presence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/208317\/","title":{"rendered":"O’Donoghue impressed by McMillan’s ‘calm presence’"},"content":{"rendered":"

With Munster going well in the BKT United Rugby Championship and a derby game to come against Leinster on Saturday, Jack O’Donoghue believes Clayton McMillan’s style of coaching has resulted in a greater air of confidence around the squad.<\/p>\n

The province regained second spot in the URC table with an victory away at the Ospreys<\/a> last weekend.<\/p>\n

And next up Thomond Park awaits the visit of Leo Cullen’s side, where Munster will aim to end a wait of ten years for back-to-back wins against their neighbours in a season.<\/p>\n

On 18 October at Croke Park, there was no denying that those in red jerseys were the masters, with a final score of 31-14 saying it all<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A wonderful Tadhg Beirne display inspired the bonus-point success on Jones’s Road, as Munster toppled their biggest rivals for the first time in five attempts, and for the first time in a regular season game since 2018.<\/p>\n

Speaking to the press ahead of this latest renewal, O’Donoghue, when looking back to the clash from nine weeks ago, said: “We played some great rugby and that’s the confidence and belief we’ll be taking into this weekend.<\/p>\n

“It gave us belief, yet they are not going to give us much credit for it, saying that did they didn’t perform and we kind of shocked them.”<\/p>\n

It’s not quite a case of Munster flanker ratcheting things up even more before this post-Christmas instalment of the rivalry.<\/p>\n

“We’re looking at making Thomond Park special for us and that’s on the back of last week,” he emphasises.<\/p>\n

“We go out to try and win very game, deliver an 80-minute performance, doing the hard graft and hopefully coming out the right side.”<\/p>\n

\"Jack
\nO’Donoghue wins possession from a lineout against Ospreys<\/p>\n

We’re now approaching six months since McMillan was appointed.<\/p>\n

The former policeman and Chiefs coach has brought a freshness to the role and it seems the players are buying into his philosophy and approach.<\/p>\n

“He has come in and really shown us that he has connected with the area, connected with the province, showing us what is really special about the province,” were O’Donoghue’s initial thoughts when assessing the early part of the McMillan era.<\/p>\n

An air of positivity, it would seem, with the 31-year-old adding: “He gave us the confidence that we are good rugby players. We had to tweak a few things to show us that we were better than we put in last season.<\/p>\n

“He brought energy; he brought confidence to the group. He has a big stature, big presence.<\/p>\n

\"dsadas\"<\/p>\n

“In the heat of battle he is incredibly calm. When your leader and head coach is calm, even when you’re under pressure, he can settle us, direct us, and tell us what we need to do before a game and after a game.<\/p>\n

“That is really relaxing for us, allowing us to go out on the field and express ourselves and play the way we want to play.”<\/p>\n

That said, O’Donoghue feels the side have not always gone to where their ambitious coach wants them to go.<\/p>\n

The performance against the Ospreys lacked some of the fluidity which has been on display this season.<\/p>\n

Errors and discipline both presented issues while Munster often found themselves called into defensive action, Ospreys dominating the ball for much of the contest.<\/p>\n

O’Donoghue commented: “We’re a bit disappointed that we haven’t at reached those standards, you have seen snippets of it.<\/p>\n

“In his post-match interviews he is pretty honest. That show us where he wants us to go and where he thinks this group can go.”<\/p>\n

\n

Listen to live radio commentary of Connacht v Ulster (5.30pm) and Munster v Leinster (7.45pm) on RT\u00c9 Radio 1’s Saturday Sport<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With Munster going well in the BKT United Rugby Championship and a derby game to come against Leinster…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":208318,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":["post-208317","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208317","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=208317"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208317\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/208318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=208317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=208317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=208317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}