When Munster and Ian Costello agreed that he rejoin the province as academy manager for the start of the current season after three years as the defence coach at Wasps, neither they nor he could possibly have envisaged that he'd be preparing the senior squad for their opening Champions Cup encounter against his former club.
Then again, Munster’s mantra since the start of Covid has been: ‘change or be changed’.
The Dingle native, an outhalf with UL Bohemians, first began working with the Munster academy as far back as 2006 while also coaching UL Bohs, the Munster under-20 and A sides before serving as a skills and assistant coach under Tony McGahan, Rob Penney and Anthony Foley before relocating to England for five years, initially with Nottingham.
That Dai Young should also invest in Costello at Wasps in addition to McGahan, Penney and Foley, says plenty.
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Quiet and calculated, Costello freely admits to leaning heavily on the core of nine internationals to guide the influx of academy and national training squad players into the squad over the last fortnight at their high-performance centre as they went back to basics.
“They’ve paired off with one or two players, whether it’s clarity or detail on your game, or just getting to know them. We’ve had a big emphasis on connecting because any game your backs are to the wall at any point, you need to know the guy beside you. They’ve been excellent in creating that type of an environment.”
But even Peter O'Mahony admits to being taken aback by the youth of the new additions.
“I think I trained with a guy who was born in 2004 the other day,” O’Mahony noted, before adding: “Earlsie could have been his father we reckoned!
“There’s guys just out of school, but to see some of the talent that’s come on is incredible. It’s really encouraging for the club.”
Costello has been as enthused.
“It’s been great. There is a lot to consider. There is exams happening, there is representative rugby and they’ve just parked everything at the moment.”
In their time of need Munster have resorted to their roots, albeit the age profile of the 22 newly registered players (all are 21 or under) also tells us much about the modern All-Ireland League.
Costello thanked the clubs for releasing so many players to what is a new bubble, thereby permitting 15 on 15 sessions.
“I cannot stress how encouraging that is for the lads,” said Costello. “We’re five or six sessions deep now, a lot of those guys have had a real opportunity to train with those internationals and I think that will have a massive effect down the line whether it inspires them on that gap that needs to be closed.
“And some of them are going to step on the field on Sunday. We’re going to have a blend of world-class players and emerging players. Yeah, really exciting and really positive.”
Conceivably, Munster could have around 10 academy players in Sunday’s matchday 23, and Costello admitted: “The real test is always going to be on the pitch but from what we can see in training, a lot of guys that are having good seasons have really stepped up in the last couple of weeks and they will get an opportunity on Sunday.
“Some will go well, there will be others that will have gaps still to go in their game but we definitely haven’t talked about it being their only opportunity. We’re very much trying to keep them level, keep them calm and focused on the process. I think emotion will look after itself on Sunday.
“We definitely want these guys to feel confident, feel the belief that when they go out we’ve got a really good squad and [we’re] confident that we can have a really good performance. That’s it. We haven’t moved beyond that.”
