{"id":445382,"date":"2026-05-12T18:35:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T18:35:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/445382\/"},"modified":"2026-05-12T18:35:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T18:35:11","slug":"munster-head-coach-clayton-mcmillan-welcomes-independent-review-into-provinces-governance-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/445382\/","title":{"rendered":"Munster head coach Clayton McMillan welcomes independent review into province\u2019s governance \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Head coach Clayton McMillan<\/a> has welcomed the Munster<\/a> board\u2019s review of the province\u2019s governance announced on Tuesday morning.<\/p>\n

In a statement the board said that it would commission an independent governance and organisational review to assess the organisation\u2019s governance, leadership, culture and communications structures and to provide recommendations back to the board.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think I took note of that last week,\u201d said McMillan. \u201cThat is a lot that we need to digest as an organisation and I welcome any review that\u2019s\u00a0going to ultimately help us be better.\u201d<\/p>\n

The move comes following the recent decision not to go ahead with the appointment of Roger Randle as attack coach by \u201cmutual agreement\u201d. Randle had previously worked with McMillan for six years at the Chiefs.<\/p>\n

Randle\u2019s appointment had provoked disquiet among Munster supporters and activists due to an allegation of rape against him made in 1997 in Durban, South Africa, when the one-time winger was touring with New Zealand\u2019s Hurricanes for a Super Rugby fixture.<\/p>\n

All charges in the case were dropped, with Randle saying recently that he maintains his \u201ccomplete and unwavering innocence, as I always have\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Last week, McMillan said there were changes that needed to be made to give him the confidence and the support to be able to do the job that\u2019s needed. However, he was unable to provide those details.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, at this stage, I think that\u2019s what the independent review will\u00a0give us direction around what independent people think we need to do to get better,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

When asked if his experience was like that of Munster Rugby chief executive, Ian Flanagan, who said in the Tuesday statement, that the past number of weeks \u201chave been difficult for staff, players, coaches, supporters, and everyone who cares about Munster Rugby\u201d, McMillan conceded it hadn\u2019t been easy.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think what I\u2019ve communicated in the past is that I think the players have done\u00a0an extremely good job of focusing on what they need to focus [on],\u201d said McMillan.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs coaches, personally,\u00a0we have a greater awareness of the challenges that the club have been facing. It hasn\u2019t been easy,\u00a0but we understand that the way that we can help influence how other people feel is through\u00a0our performances on the weekend.<\/p>\n

\u201cAgain, performances like last week, don\u2019t do a hell\u00a0of a lot to inspire and make people feel better. That weighs heavier on us than any noise from the\u00a0outside.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"JackJack Crowley takes part in Munster’s training session at UL on Tuesday. Photograph: Tom O\u2019Hanlon\/Inpho <\/p>\n

Munster were beaten 26-7 by Connacht at Dexcom Stadium last Saturday and defeat on Saturday to the Lions in Thomond Park (kick-off 7.45pm) could leave them outside the URC playoff positions and next year\u2019s Champions Cup.<\/p>\n

The coach, however, does not believe the outside noise has seeped into the players thinking, or affected play.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t believe\u00a0so, no,\u201d he said. \u201cThere were elements of the game [against Connacht] afterwards that I thought we did well,\u00a0particularly in the second half. When you\u2019re playing a desperate team in front of a passionate crowd and a lot at stake, if you don\u2019t produce your best then you lose.<\/p>\n

\u201cI saw that the emotion\u00a0that they [Connacht] brought to the game was reflected mostly in the collision parts of the game.\u00a0They ran harder into contact, they tackled harder, they competed harder for everything.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople probably thought it looked one-sided because one team\u00a0was accelerating into collisions and the other was sitting on their heels. Unfortunately, that was us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Should Munster miss out on the playoffs and Champions Cup, it could be hugely damaging to where the team are trying to get to in terms of consistent performances.<\/p>\n

Munster are placed sixth on the table with Lions one place above them in fifth place and among several tightly grouped teams hoping to make the cut-off for the top eight.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat would be huge [not to qualify]. It\u2019s not where we wanted to be,\u201d said McMillan. \u201cWe\u2019ve put ourselves in this position and we\u2019re the only ones that can\u00a0find our way through. We just have to focus on the performances directly in front of us.<\/p>\n

\u201cLast week, it wasn\u2019t a great performance and we need to be significantly better against the Lions\u00a0team, who I feel would be equally disappointed not to put in a perfect performance.\u201d<\/p>\n

McMillan is hoping that Ireland outhalf Jack Crowley will be in contention to play on Saturday after returning to training following a leg injury. <\/p>\n

\u201cJack Crowley\u2019s trained fully the last couple of days, so he\u2019s looking positive,\u201d said McMillan.\u00a0\u201cMaybe we can\u2019t count chickens before they hatch, but it\u2019s all looking very positive.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Head coach Clayton McMillan has welcomed the Munster board\u2019s review of the province\u2019s governance announced on Tuesday morning.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":445383,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,11897,112],"class_list":["post-445382","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-munster-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445382","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=445382"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445382\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/445383"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=445382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=445382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=445382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}