THE TIMING OF Andi Kyriacou’s first move to Munster wasn’t totally ideal.
It was 2006 and the Irish-qualified hooker had just bought a new house in London, where he had been playing for Saracens for the previous two seasons. He and his wife had literally unpacked their boxes and bags when the call came from Limerick. Munster needed a hooker on loan, there was plenty of game time on offer.
Starved of minutes in Saracens and with the reigning Heineken Cup champions asking for him, Kyriacou had to take the opportunity.
“I said, ‘See you later,’ and off we went!” says Kyriacou, who is now the new Munster forwards coach, having been promoted from his role with the province’s academy.
He played for Munster in the Magners League and Heineken Cup in that 2006/07 season, which wasn’t a vintage one as they finished sixth in the league and got knocked out of the European quarter-finals by Scarlets.
Still, the place was packed with legends of Irish rugby. Munster were in between their two Heineken Cup crowns. Kyriacou found the place welcoming but equally challenging. Ronan O’Gara, Paul O’Connell, Jerry Flannery, and co. set high standards.
“One thing that immediately hit me was the accountability from the players and how tough they were on each other in training, not accepting things that may have been accepted in the place I was at,” says 39-year-old Kyriacou.
“It was just a phenomenal learning experience. I got a lot of playing opportunities which is always great. I made lifelong friends. It has been great to come back and reconnect with people straight away, the lads who are still in the game and the lads who have left the game. It is a great place. I had a great year.”
He went back to Sarries afterwards but then returned to Ireland with Ulster in 2009 - the same year he played for Ireland A – and had three more seasons on these shores.
“The four years in total that I spent over here as a player, I just had the best time. It’s such a great country. Irish rugby in general at the moment is in a great place.”
His career was ended by injury after joining Cardiff, where he moved straight into coaching the forwards.
In 2015, he began an interesting experience as Russia’s forwards coach, a role that lasted for four seasons and which he initially combined with working as Sale Sharks’ scrum and skills coach.
“Not the language, I couldn’t dip my toe into the Russian language too well,” jokes Kyriacou of that spell.
He was in charge of the defence and forwards at Championship club Nottingham from 2018 until last year when he got a job as a Munster academy coach working under Ian Costello.
“Nottingham was fantastic for me in terms of my development, working with Neil Fowkes, who had worked with Ian Costello the year before. Without knowing it, I was already getting an insight into what I was going to move into when I came and worked with Cossie. Working with Ian was excellent all year last year.”
Kyriacou and Costello took over at senior level for a short spell last season when the main squad was stuck in South Africa due to a Covid-19 outbreak. With a group of Ireland internationals combined with fresh-faced academy players, Munster beat Wasps in December in the Champions Cup. It’s an experience Kyriacou thoroughly enjoyed.
Now he’s with the senior set-up on a permanent basis, with Graham Rowntree bringing him in to guide the forwards after his own promotion to head coach. Rowntree will still do the scrum and breakdown and Kyriacou is excited to be working with ‘Wig.’
Their mission is to make Munster’s pack respected and feared once again. A little like the days when Kyriacou first joined the province.
“We’ve got a very good relationship from last year and he’s given me the freedom to go and do what I want to do, which is great,” says Kyriacou of working with Rowntree.
“It’s nice to have that trust. We talk a lot, it’s very open and we all want this Munster pack to move on and move forward, get that fear factor about it again.”
Kyriacou says he is enjoying working with fellow assistant coaches Mike Prendergast and Denis Leamy too. He played with the latter during his spell with Munster in 2006/07 and played against Prendergast that year when the former scrum-half was with Bourgoin.
“They’re obviously very talented coaches, got great ideas, and are very much driven in and around non-negotiables,” says Kyriacou.
“That accountability is something we definitely need and they’re driving on, they’re driving their areas on at a rate of knots and the lads are all over it, the lads love it.”
