Munster move on, a little broken and beaten, but unbowed.
After a planning day last Friday at all levels, the Munster hierarchy will meet on Monday following their 38-24 loss to an All Blacks XV to start planning the recruitment process for a new head coach to replace the departed Graham Rowntree.
“There is a bit of work in that, profiling the coach we are looking for,” said head of operations and stand-in head coach Ian Costello.
“How they would add to what we have already because genuinely we feel like we are doing an awful lot of things really well and that alignment and integration, we want someone that is going to add to that; somebody that is going to add to the three or four years of work that we have done. We talk about consistency and continuity, and add to that possibly.”
Costello doesn’t believe this unscheduled search for a new head coach in the relatively early stages of a season will prove disruptive.
“Mike [Prendergast] coaches attack. He is a world-class attack coach. Denis [Leamy] is the best defence in the league the last two seasons. Kyri [Andy Kyriacos] coaches the forwards and George [Murray] and Mossy [Lawler] are still there.
“From within we have added some academy coaches to support the group and my job is probably just to blend it all together. If it takes a month, if it takes three months, if it takes seven, the key thing is we get the right person, the right fit for the squad, for what we have built already.
“I think that’s where we have to be really clear. We have to have confidence in the direction we are going, the strategy we have had, the vision we have had in the last couple of years, and then find a coach. If it takes the rest of the season to get the right person, so be it.”
Meanwhile, the players will feel revived after a difficult week while also grateful for a 10-day break before their next game against the Lions back at Thomond Park.
“Yes I think that is pretty much it,” said Diarmuid Barron. “I think you would be in a better head space. Like Cozzy [Costello] said, the break is well needed. There are some sore bodies around the place and hopefully it [the break] adds to our fit players list in getting lads back when we do play again.
“Just to refresh the mind, I don’t think going and going and going does anyone any favours, particularly when results aren’t going your way and you are just missing out on things.
“Like the week we have had, the fixture tonight will help, but I think the break will help even more and I have no doubt we will come back stronger from it.”
Even so, the 26-year-old from Cashel will always have had the honour of leading out Munster to the sight of most in the 26,267 crowd illuminating the temporarily unlit stadium with their mobiles and to the pounding rhythm of Zombie.
Barron will remember ‘a multitude of things”, he said, adding: “I suppose captaining Munster against an All Blacks side has to be right up there, and the feeling in the dressingroom at half-time, even at the end.
“I know we came away at the wrong side of the result, but if you could bottle up the feeling of the exhaustion and that you have gone to war with lads younger than you, lads older than you who are close to 300 games, and lads that it’s their first game, it’s a very special feeling.
“Memories like that last with you for a long time. It’s a pity we didn’t win, it would have been a particularly special memory. There’s too many things to take away but that would probably be the most special part of it.”
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