Like Damian de Allende, Niall Scannell has played in each of the five meetings with Leinster since the start of the pandemic, in other words without fans. In fact, the only Munster-Leinster game Scannell has missed of the last 16 meetings dating back to his first in Christmas 2015 was when rested for a festive derby at home in 2019, meaning this will be his first in front of a Thomond Park crowd since the win in December 2018.
Tonight it will be how it used to be. Hence, when it was announced that de Allende was leaving this week, Scannell felt more than a twinge of regret for the South African.
“I feel like maybe he hasn’t got the full Munster experience and that’s a shame because these are the days that are special in a Munster jersey. Win, lose or draw you go to war in front of a really passionate crowd and the same going into Europe.
“It’s a different sport in front of a crowd. There’s more to it. The momentum moments are bigger. There’s probably that bit more pressure but there’s that bit more adrenalin as well. Some lads haven’t experienced that so hopefully it will be rocking and they’ll experience what it’s really like to pull on that red jersey on the big days because it is different for a Munster player on the big day. And maybe that’s an edge that we’ve missed in the last two years.”
While it’s been a tough rivalry for Munster in latter years, Scannell counters that his side have been consistently close.
“Don’t get me wrong, Leinster have been hugely successful in my whole time playing professional rugby to be honest. That stings a bit and as I get older they’re definitely the team that we want to beat and we want to change that narrative.”
Timely recovery
Scannell made a timely recovery from the shoulder injury that sidelined him for eight weeks in time for Munster’s South African safari to start both games against the Bulls and the Lions.
“The conditions were just so extreme that it was a good opportunity to accelerate that recovery. Playing at altitude gets your fitness back a hell of a lot quicker. In saying that it was tough while we were down there but I’m thankful for it now.”
Scannell is, by 20 months, the older brother of Rory, while their younger cousin Jack O’Sullivan is also on Munster’s books, yet this trio have completely bucked their familial GAA roots. Scannell’s maternal grandfather Donal O’Sullivan captained the Cork senior Gaelic football team.
“My dream growing up was to play for Cork in hurling,” admits Scannell, who along with younger siblings Rory, Billy and Kate played a wide variety of sports as a kid. Their mother Emer owns a chemists and Kate is finishing her pharmacy studies “to steal the family business from us”, quips Scannell.
His father Billy played a little rugby but mostly football, and in addition to playing Gaelic football with Douglas, Scannell played soccer with College Corinthians.
It was only after breaking into Presentation Brothers College’s (PBC) Junior Cup team when coached by Ken O’Connell that rugby began to take precedence. That said, he maintains Rory was a more talented footballer.
“Playing all three across the frontrow isn’t the same as playing across the whole backline,” he says, self-deprecatingly.
Even when he was 14 and part of a school trip to the Irish-run Rugby and French camp near Biarritz, he admits he had negligible interest in rugby. “It was a summer trip away with the lads. I wasn’t saying no to that!”
His rugby career “definitely wouldn’t have happened” but for PBC, where good coaching – he references Paul Barr and Peter Scott – and being part of a successful team helped too. Scannell was also part of a Munster Schools Senior Cup-winning side and played on the Irish Schools’s team for two seasons.
He also played for Ireland in the 2012 Under-20s Six Nations and succeeded Paddy Jackson as captain for the Under-20s World Championships that summer, when Ireland stunned the hosts South Africa and beat England in finishing fifth.
Yet he describes his year in the sub-academy, two in the full academy and two more on developments contracts with Munster as comparatively tough. “You go from thinking it’s going to happen easily to kind of wondering is it actually going to happen at all.”
By the start of the 2015-16 season, at 23, Scannell had played just seven times for Munster, and only once as the starting hooker, but Anthony Foley had awarded him his first senior contract.
“To be fair to Axel, he saw something in me, persevered with me and gave me a chance. I took a lot from that because he was a man with a serious eye for detail, can spot a player and he had a lot of faith at a time that was really tough for him as his first head coach job. The easy option for him would have been to continue with more senior players. That was the turning point for me.”
Indeed, Scannell started 10 games that season and another 13 off the bench.
He recalls some of his meetings with Foley and laughs. “I definitely was a confident young fella coming out of 20s and he was well able to give it to me straight.
“He was the first person to say to me: ‘Yeah, you’re good at this skill and that skill but, like, but Mike Sherry can do this, Duncan Casey can do this, Damien Varley can do this. What is your point of difference?’”
Huge influence
As the biggest of those hookers, Scannell resolved to be the best in the set-pieces. “That was where that fire was ignited, and now it’s something I pride myself on as a player.”
To that end he spent hours practising his throwing with Mick O’Driscoll, and Jerry Flannery has been a huge influence as well.
“He would love to remind you when he was playing that he was the best thrower in the world. That’s not really an official stat anywhere but in his head it’s rock solid. But I wanted a coach to know that if he picks Niall Scannell this is my USP. Some coaches value that, some maybe not as much, and that drive definitely came from Flah.”
Scannell recalls approaching Flannery, either in 2010-11 or 2011-12 when he was about 18 or 19, when the latter was recuperating from the calf problem in the gym.
“He was on the rower and was absolutely covered in sweat head to toe, beasting himself. When he was finished I tip-toed over and tapped him on the shoulder and asked: “Eh, any chance if you have a bit of time at some stage could I do a throwing session with you?’
“And the way he is he just said: ‘Yeah, we’ll do it now, grab some balls’. I thought I might get 10 minutes but we were probably there for an hour.”
Even during Flannery’s time with Arsenal, he’d do throwing sessions with Scannell, before returning to Munster as an assistant coach.
“He could still quieten you by throwing back a ball that was better than the one you threw, and you both knew it. He wouldn’t say anything, just that usual smirk that he’d have. You can be lucky, crossing paths with the right people at the right time.”
Even now, Scannell might contact him, providing there was no chance of an impending game against Harlequins. “I can imagine him standing at a team meeting saying: ‘This f***er is struggling with confidence with his throwing. He was on the phone to me last week. Get after him’.”
The following season, 2016-17, after Foley’s passing and the arrival of Rassie Erasmus, Scannell started 22 of his 26 games for Munster and also broke into the Ireland team, winning his first three caps in the 2017 Six Nations.
“That was a brilliant part of my career, playing with Ireland and we were playing some good rugby here with Rassie.”
Scannell went to the 2019 World Cup effectively as second choice to Rory Best, his four games including bench appearances in the win over Scotland and quarter-final loss to New Zealand, albeit by which point the game was up.
“I was frustrated that night,” admits Scannell, who came on in the 62nd minute just after the All Blacks had gone 36-0 ahead. “I was playing angry I suppose to an extent, but I definitely didn’t think I wasn’t going to play with Ireland again at the time. It’s a disappointing one thus far to have as your last game so I’d definitely like to get in there again.
Ambition
That was only the third defeat Scannell had been a part of in his 20 caps, yet he hasn’t figured in an Ireland squad since.
“The pecking order has changed now but that is still my ambition, to play with Ireland again,” says Scannell, still only 29.
“Equally, I’m aware that I need to do my job here. The better I’m playing and the better we’re doing as a team, the more players are going to get into that jersey, and getting good results in this period coming up, they’re season-turners where the narrative can change big time. I’ve been around long enough to realise that now.
“There’s guys here that I empathise with that are playing really good rugby. All ships rise on a high tide and we have an opportunity in the next block to do that.”
And also generate the opportunity, or opportunities, to end that decade-long Munster trophy drought.
“There’s fellas in the last couple of years who are retiring, stalwarts of the club, and who haven’t won anything with Munster, and that’s probably the first time that’s happened. But you’re in a club where you know the resources, the coaching and the pedigree is there, that you can go and win.”
He regards Munster’s golden years, with a golden generation, as an inspiration.
“As I say to people I’d never want to be in a club where you didn’t have a chance, and that’s ultimately what comes with expectation, a bit of pressure. We know what is expected of us, to win in Munster, and when we don’t it’s hugely disappointing.
“But it’s the pressure you embrace when you join a club like this. If you don’t want that in your life, if you don’t want to be coming in and getting better every day, this definitely isn’t the club for you. But it is also definitely building and it would be great to just get one, more so for myself and my team-mates to have those memories of winning rather than anything external.
“We want to win together. We want to enjoy winning together and you see lads enjoying that recently with the Triple Crown. And they’re the best memories. I haven’t had them yet but that’s what I want to create with Munster.”
