THE SCENES AFTER full time in Croke Park were special. Munster players running towards Hill 16 to celebrate with fans who have endured far more bad days than good watching their team in Dublin. Craig Casey making a beeline for Jack Crowley to congratulate the out-half on his star showing.
A rivalry that’s felt increasingly one-sided has the fire back after a cracking URC contest in Croke Park, with Munster fully deserving winners on a 31-14 scoreline. This was their first regular season league win in Dublin since the 2014/15 season, and their first victory over Leinster since the 2023 URC final.
A performance full of grit and determination has handed Clayton McMillan a statement performance just four games into his reign. It will be fascinating to see where their season goes from here.
Munster had built a healthy 21-7 lead by half time and then protected it with a massive defensive effort after the break. The province made 267 tackles across a ferocious 80-minute effort.
“I thought it was outstanding,” said McMillan.
“You can look into the heart and soul of a team, I think, by the way that they’re prepared to fight for each other and defend. And Leinster are a quality side and they put us under a huge amount of pressure, they just keep standing up, and get over a couple of times, but even just the smarts to roll underneath and keep them off the ground. All of those little bits were very pleasing.
“The barometer or the line in the sand has been drawn now, and we’ve just got to keep fighting to be at that level.”
Munster captain Tadhg Beirne was central to that effort with an inspired performance on his first outing of the season.
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Munster's Gavin Coombes celebrates after the match Tom Maher / INPHO
Tom Maher / INPHO / INPHO
“Since Clayton has come in and everything, we focus on a theme for the week and we had a theme this week. We want to keep improving, and the challenge is put to us at the start of the week of what we want to get out of it,” he said.
“It was put to us this week and I thought we all stood up and achieved what we set out to do.”
McMillan was asked to elaborate on what that theme was.
“I just wanted to make it a dogfight,” he replied. “Leinster are just too good a side that if you sit and wait and sort of give them a moment to impose their game on you, then you’re going to be losing. So we needed to be in the scrap for everything and want to be the hunter, not the hunted. So that’s the basic gist of it.”
“Look, it wasn’t the prettiest game but it was a huge dogfight from us,” added Shane Daly.
“We made a huge statement today to the league and to Irish rugby, that’s what we set out to do and we did it. I’m happy with that performance.
“It was a smart performance as well, we played in the right areas. We didn’t try and overplay and that was our plan. To execute that in Croke Park as well was massive.”
Before Munster found themselves digging in in their own 22, they had been inspired by the performance of Crowley at 10, the Corkman delivering one of his strongest outings after a week where so much focus had been on the opposing out-halves.
“I thought he had a really good game,” McMillan said.
Jack Crowley celebrates with Craig Casey. Dan Sheridan / INPHO
Dan Sheridan / INPHO / INPHO
“I’ve been impressed with Jack since he came back from the off-season, had a real focus about him. He’s fit and he’s just calm.
“I thought this week he started to inject his leadership and his voice a little bit more than what we’ve seen in previous weeks. So he was well aware of the occasion, he was up for it and I thought he did a magnificent job.”
Munster will take huge confidence from this performance, but will also need to pick up the pieces from a bruising encounter in which Edwin Edogbo, Brian Gleeson, Ethan Coughlan, Diarmuid Barron and Andrew Smith were all forced off, while Beirne also made way for a HIA. At one point Munster were so stretched that 37-year-old prop John Ryan had to fill in at blindside flank.
“Yeah, it’s deep,” said McMillan.
“There’s a couple of HIAs, two hamstrings I think. So that put us under huge pressure too. We had exhausted our bench with 20-odd minutes to go. Hopefully we’re not going to see John Ryan on blindside flank too often this season, but even he just rolled up the sleeves and got on with it.
“It’s not looking pretty, but we’ll get through next week and we can sort of reassess and take a bit of a break.”
Next up for Munster is a Thomond Park date with Connacht next Saturday. They’ll head into it flying high after taking four wins from their opening four URC outings.
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'The line in the sand has been drawn now, we've got to keep fighting to be at that level'
THE SCENES AFTER full time in Croke Park were special. Munster players running towards Hill 16 to celebrate with fans who have endured far more bad days than good watching their team in Dublin. Craig Casey making a beeline for Jack Crowley to congratulate the out-half on his star showing.
A rivalry that’s felt increasingly one-sided has the fire back after a cracking URC contest in Croke Park, with Munster fully deserving winners on a 31-14 scoreline. This was their first regular season league win in Dublin since the 2014/15 season, and their first victory over Leinster since the 2023 URC final.
A performance full of grit and determination has handed Clayton McMillan a statement performance just four games into his reign. It will be fascinating to see where their season goes from here.
Munster had built a healthy 21-7 lead by half time and then protected it with a massive defensive effort after the break. The province made 267 tackles across a ferocious 80-minute effort.
“I thought it was outstanding,” said McMillan.
“You can look into the heart and soul of a team, I think, by the way that they’re prepared to fight for each other and defend. And Leinster are a quality side and they put us under a huge amount of pressure, they just keep standing up, and get over a couple of times, but even just the smarts to roll underneath and keep them off the ground. All of those little bits were very pleasing.
“The barometer or the line in the sand has been drawn now, and we’ve just got to keep fighting to be at that level.”
Munster captain Tadhg Beirne was central to that effort with an inspired performance on his first outing of the season.
“Since Clayton has come in and everything, we focus on a theme for the week and we had a theme this week. We want to keep improving, and the challenge is put to us at the start of the week of what we want to get out of it,” he said.
“It was put to us this week and I thought we all stood up and achieved what we set out to do.”
McMillan was asked to elaborate on what that theme was.
“I just wanted to make it a dogfight,” he replied. “Leinster are just too good a side that if you sit and wait and sort of give them a moment to impose their game on you, then you’re going to be losing. So we needed to be in the scrap for everything and want to be the hunter, not the hunted. So that’s the basic gist of it.”
“Look, it wasn’t the prettiest game but it was a huge dogfight from us,” added Shane Daly.
“We made a huge statement today to the league and to Irish rugby, that’s what we set out to do and we did it. I’m happy with that performance.
“It was a smart performance as well, we played in the right areas. We didn’t try and overplay and that was our plan. To execute that in Croke Park as well was massive.”
Before Munster found themselves digging in in their own 22, they had been inspired by the performance of Crowley at 10, the Corkman delivering one of his strongest outings after a week where so much focus had been on the opposing out-halves.
“I thought he had a really good game,” McMillan said.
“I’ve been impressed with Jack since he came back from the off-season, had a real focus about him. He’s fit and he’s just calm.
“I thought this week he started to inject his leadership and his voice a little bit more than what we’ve seen in previous weeks. So he was well aware of the occasion, he was up for it and I thought he did a magnificent job.”
Munster will take huge confidence from this performance, but will also need to pick up the pieces from a bruising encounter in which Edwin Edogbo, Brian Gleeson, Ethan Coughlan, Diarmuid Barron and Andrew Smith were all forced off, while Beirne also made way for a HIA. At one point Munster were so stretched that 37-year-old prop John Ryan had to fill in at blindside flank.
“Yeah, it’s deep,” said McMillan.
“There’s a couple of HIAs, two hamstrings I think. So that put us under huge pressure too. We had exhausted our bench with 20-odd minutes to go. Hopefully we’re not going to see John Ryan on blindside flank too often this season, but even he just rolled up the sleeves and got on with it.
“It’s not looking pretty, but we’ll get through next week and we can sort of reassess and take a bit of a break.”
Next up for Munster is a Thomond Park date with Connacht next Saturday. They’ll head into it flying high after taking four wins from their opening four URC outings.
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Clayton McMillan Munster Reaction Shane Daly Tadhg Beirne URC