{"id":254067,"date":"2026-01-20T10:18:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-20T10:18:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/254067\/"},"modified":"2026-01-20T10:18:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-20T10:18:09","slug":"worrying-munster-slide-part-of-journey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/254067\/","title":{"rendered":"Worrying Munster slide part of ‘journey’"},"content":{"rendered":"

As statement victories go, beating Leinster at Croke Park was up there.<\/p>\n

A fully loaded Leinster, brim full of Lions, at home, against a meandering Munster finding their feet under a new coach.<\/p>\n

A turning point, a sliding doors moment?<\/p>\n

The 31-14 bonus-point victory<\/a> looked a real statement of intent from Clayton McMillan’s men.<\/p>\n

To be fair to the New Zealander, in the interviews after the early run of victories, he never gave the sense of a man happy with a job well done.<\/p>\n

One imagined the immediate post-match dressing room briefings contained as many observations about what they did wrong as praise for what they got right.<\/p>\n

He was “kind of” happy after creeping past Cardiff and felt they “need to be better” after edging Edinburgh.<\/p>\n

But the success in Croke Park – their first regular-season win over Leo Cullen’s side in seven years – was different. Munster stood up when it mattered and delivered across the park.<\/p>\n

The following week, Munster made it back-to-back interpro wins with a 17-15 success over Connacht. After five URC wins on the trot, everything appeared rosy in the garden.<\/p>\n

It all started to go awry in the last quarter of their sixth league game, at home to table-toppers Stormers<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Three first-half tries, all converted, had the hosts in good shape at 21-6 up and they still looked good to see out the game when the South Africans scored two tries.<\/p>\n

\n

Gavin Coombes was sent to the bin attempting to stop the first of those and the pack was struggling to deal with the visitors’ power game.<\/p>\n

Munster tried a loop move in midfield which resulted in Jack Crowley’s pass being intercepted by Ruhan Nel who ran half the length to win the match.<\/p>\n

An away win at Ospreys followed but since then it’s been a downhill ride, from joint top to sixth.<\/p>\n

The bloodbath in Bath, when Lions player of the series Tadhg Beirne got an early yellow card in which time Munster conceded 21 points, was a shock to the system but there was still a belief that defeat to the Premiership champions was an aberration.<\/p>\n

However, the nature of the Champions Cup win over Gloucester at P\u00e1irc u\u00ed Chaoimh<\/a>, when they needed late tries to secure a bonus point against a English side dutifully fulfilling a fixture, hinted that all was not right.<\/p>\n

Domestically, the struggles also continued with a brace of derby defeats to Leinster at home and Ulster away.<\/p>\n

The toil in Toulon<\/a> could easily have resulted in another famous European win but two yellow cards – for Beirne (14 points conceded during that sin-bin) and Alex Nankivell – proved fatal.<\/p>\n

For all the talk about the phantom late penalty call against Tom Farrell, they shouldn’t have been within reach in the crucial final stages.<\/p>\n

That set up the ‘loser goes home’ clash against Castres<\/a> ahead of which those issues had been widely spoken about. And what happens?<\/p>\n

\"17
\nMunster are left to reflect on a painful European exit<\/p>\n

With the game in the balance, Farrell illegally clears out a ruck and goes on the naughty step. It’s another 14-point mistake with the visitors scoring what turned out to be the winning tries.<\/p>\n

That led to a first pool-stage exit from the Champions Cup since 2020 – and may become a statement defeat of some note.<\/p>\n

Another period of reflection but how do you relay the same message to the same players?<\/p>\n

“It’s one of the big challenges as a coaching group…to navigate over the season and find different ways of previewing and reviewing,” McMillan told RT\u00c9 Sport on Monday afternoon following a fourth loss in a row.<\/p>\n

“You find yourself on this merry-go-round where you are going extremely hard at players, other weeks where you give them a big pat on the back around some stuff, other days when you find a bit of a balance of both.<\/p>\n

“But [Monday] was one of those days where we actually needed to do a deep dive. We needed some honesty, a bit of vulnerability and we got that.”<\/p>\n

McMillan, a former policeman, cuts a serious figure and the players have spoken in glowing terms of the former Chiefs boss, who arrived as the seventh head coach in a 13-year period and seemed to add some much needed stability to the organisation.<\/p>\n

\"17
\nJack Crowley missed three of five conversion attempts<\/p>\n

Take out the 2023 surprise URC title, no mean feat, and the team have lived in the shadow of Leinster since 2009.<\/p>\n

Ulster, riding high under Richie Murphy, appear to be on the right track, too, while Connacht will give Stuart Lancaster time to settle.<\/p>\n

The majority of the Munster fan base are used to the high life, however, and second tier competition doesn’t chime with the legacy of 2006 and 2008.<\/p>\n

Exeter away in April may be a hard sell.<\/p>\n

McMillan said he wasn’t surprised that there were high expectations at his new club.<\/p>\n

“You do your homework and you understand where a squad is at, and what the competition is like,” he said.<\/p>\n

“I would have spoken to a lot of people and was well informed when I came in here.<\/p>\n

“I would like to think that one of my real strengths is that my playing journey and my coaching journey has never been one of privilege.<\/p>\n

“It’s always been inheriting teams. I don’t know why, I don’t always want this to happen, but inheriting teams that are perhaps in a state of transition or have been through some change.<\/p>\n

“I like to think that one of my skill sets is to go into those environments and put a plan in place that will bring about the change that’s needed to be consistently competitive and contesting titles on a regular basis.<\/p>\n

“That’s what we’re seeing unfold. We all want things to get better at an accelerated rate, but we’re just living the reality of where we currently are.<\/p>\n

“We’re not happy about it, but I’m also realistic to know that we are on a little bit of a journey.<\/p>\n

“I say that with a bit of trepidation because it can be interpreted as you’re looking for a free pass, and it’s not that.”.<\/p>\n

\"17<\/p>\n

The head coach (above), who signed a three-year deal, had already dismissed the suggestion his head might be turned by the surprise vacancy at the All Blacks after Scott Robertson was sacked last week and added: “I made a commitment to come here and I fully intend to see that out.”<\/p>\n

The next block of URC games – against Dragons on Friday in Cork and away to Glasgow the following week – will be instructive.<\/p>\n

The Welsh side, who won just twice last season, have won four and drawn twice in all competitions this season already and look a more awkward opponent.<\/p>\n

Glasgow, one week out from the Six Nations, will have more players on international duty so a gritty performance is the least McMillan’s charges need to produce against a second-string Warriors team.<\/p>\n

After bursting out of the blocks at the start of the season, it’s been a worrying slide over the last three months and McMillan will be fully aware more is expected.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As statement victories go, beating Leinster at Croke Park was up there. A fully loaded Leinster, brim full…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":254068,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":{"0":"post-254067","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-ie","9":"tag-ireland","10":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254067","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=254067"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254067\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/254068"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=254067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=254067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=254067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}