Six-day turnaround a major fresh challenge for buoyant Munster

No sooner had a patchwork if inspired playing squad returned to base than Munster had to face up to a six-day turnaround before facing Castres in Thomond Park next Saturday night.

As to how many of the absent cavalry will appear over the hill remains to be seen, as Johann van Graan and the Munster brains trust ascertain the contrasting wellbeing of the 34 players who have been isolating in their own locations or quarantining in a Cape Town hotel.

“I suppose there’s a lot of unknowns,” said Academy manager/head coach for the past fortnight Ian Costello in the aftermath of Munster’s amazing bonus point in Coventry.

Uppermost among these, as he put it, is “when will players come out of quarantine?” And then there’s their readiness for a Heineken Champions Cup given the vast majority won’t have played for eight weeks.

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“Anybody who comes back into the mix has to be able to step up. I think one job at a time. We’ll start planning in the next few days.”

Outstanding though the dozen debutants were, which included eight Academy players and five in the starting XV, Sunday’s performance was a one-off in so many ways. The amalgam of internationals and young tyros prepared and ultimately played as if there was no tomorrow, no next game. It would be a huge ask to scale those heights again within six days and so, realistically, some of the cavalry are bound to return, as Costello implied.

“Look I think everything is in context. We made a decision two weeks ago to go with this group and they have done really, really well. At this level it has got to be about doing it over a sustained period of time. So we have to manage expectation as well and keep creating opportunity at the right time.

“All bets were off,” added Costello of Sunday’s improbable win. “Most of these players you would not expect to be playing Champions Cup for a few years yet, that is fair to say. Yes they stepped up to the mark, their stock has risen, but there is a pecking order, there is a hierarchy.

“What they have done now is they have acquitted themselves really well. They have put themselves into conversations. I think there is a whole different conversation next week in a six-day turnaround. Who have we got back? What positions have we got available? And we will reassess. All we can say is that we are so proud of how those guys performed.”

More opportunities

The Munster academy has taken some flak in recent years, not least when compared to Leinster’s remarkable production line. Sunday’s performance showed there is plenty of talent coming through the Munster pathway, but Costello cautioned: “It’s a work in progress, there’s no point in saying it’s not. There has to be momentum to springboard for the future.”

Costello also spoke of the way Munster brought the National Talent Squad and Provincial Talent Squad players and coaches into their bubble at the HPC.

“Now we have to find a way to capitalise on that and we have to find a way to spark us going forward. And it has to be about our pathway as well and it’s got to be the Munster way of doing things. Yes, this is in a crisis and it’s a very unique situation but we have to find a way to create more opportunities for the whole club to come together like this.”

Peter O’Mahony, who clearly thrived in the whole process, hailed the way the NTS players mimicked Wasps’ attack plays in training.

“They were flawless,” he said. “This will give the club a great lift, it will give the province a great lift, and short-term it will give us an incredible amount of confidence. The guys that have come in, we do spend a lot of time with the academy but we don’t get on the pitch a lot with them. It gives us a great snapshot of what is actually in there and the quality they produce is absolutely class. We depend a huge amount on it.

“But we have six days now to back it up. We have a big game in Thomond Park and we will have guys coming back who will be hungry and haven’t played in a while. Everyone will get a good buzz out of it but we’ve got to kick on from it.”

Even so, this was a statement win the like of which will probably never be seen again.

“As a standalone game, it was some win. It’s not something you see in a lot of professional games, guys coming in. The doctor was running around earlier on making sure everyone was over 18 years old. There was only one of the lads in there who was 18 and he was thankful everyone else was over 19.

“I was getting strapped and I was going, ‘What is going on here?’ right up until before kick-off. So things like that are going to stand out to me forever. That game will be important to me when I retire. That will be one you remember for a long time.”