ONE OF THE first things Clayton McMillan addressed when he spoke to his Munster players for the first time as they kicked off pre-season in July was the inconsistency that has plagued the southern province.
Munster are capable of great performances on big days. Witness the trip to La Rochelle last season.
But they’ve also been too prone to big lapses in the other direction. A depressing home defeat to Edinburgh in Cork was among them in 2024/25.
New head coach McMillan’s thinking is that getting to those memorable highs isn’t the issue. It’s that Munster’s low points are simply too low.
“It almost seems to be ingrained in the Munster psyche that when our backs are against the wall or when we get into really big games that really matter, we have the ability to go to another level,” said McMillan in Limerick yesterday as he spoke to the Irish media for the first time.
“That’s admirable but we can’t have those days and then the next week turn up and lose to the team that, for all intents and purposes, we should beat.
“It’s about not necessarily judging ourselves on the days when we’re at our best. It’s about judging ourselves when we’re at our worst.”
He uses Tadhg Beirne as an example. Beirne’s best is a 9.5 out of 10. But even when he has an off day, it’s a 7.5 performance.
“It’s trying to achieve that with a good rugby team, where your best day at the office is a 9.5 and a poor one is a 7, not a 4 or a 5.
“If you’re at 7, you still give yourself a really good chance of winning that game. It’s about getting everybody’s level a little bit higher. Raising the floor instead of raising the bar.”
McMillan doesn’t come across as someone prone to getting over-excited. He is renowned as a figure of authority. The first thing that stood out to Munster’s players when he came up from New Zealand for a quick visit last season was what they call his “aura.”
The 51-year-old former policeman certainly has a presence about him. He was a big, powerful back row in his own playing days and built an excellent reputation as a coach with the Chiefs in his native New Zealand over the last few years.
McMillan at Munster pre-season training. Ryan Byrne / INPHO
Ryan Byrne / INPHO / INPHO
McMillan had a good thing going at home. The Chiefs had become a consistent force, reaching the last three Super Rugby finals only to fall short in each of them. They played exciting, balanced, hard-edged rugby.
McMillan, who is seen as a future All Blacks coach in New Zealand, was still under contract and wasn’t looking for something new. His wife and two teenage children were happy. But then came a call asking if he’d be interested in the Munster job, which had been vacant since Graham Rowntree’s sudden exit last season.
McMillan had to think deeply. He had been at Thomond Park as head coach of the All Blacks XV in November 2024 and was impressed with the Munster fans. He saw the opportunity to “grow myself as a coach” and for his family to have a new experience.
And as he decided to take the leap and sign a three-year deal with the IRFU and Munster, he reached out to rugby folk who knew the lay of the land in Ireland. Rua Tipoki, Jason Holland, Joe Schmidt, and Rob Penney were among those he spoke to as he tried to get a sense of what was in store.
McMillan has also been doing lots of reading and speaking to people here about the history of Munster and its people. A big part of his success with the Chiefs was creating a culture the players bought into, much of it based around Māori traditions.
Now, he’s keeping his ears and eyes open for how things work in Munster. There have been a few early lessons.
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“I asked the players for some feedback at the end of training and the training could have gone really well… but it seems to be the Irish way that they focused on the three or four things that didn’t go well in the training,” said McMillan, whose wife, Nataalia, 16-year-old son, Ari, and 14-year-old daughter, Peata, are settling in well in Limerick.
“When you speak to everyone, they say, ‘Oh, that’s just the Irish, that’s just how we are, we’re glass-half-empty type people.’ That’s not my words. That’s what other people are saying.
“That’s not right or wrong, it’s just a little bit different and, again, it’s just having some conversations with some people and saying, well, it’s important too that we recognise the good stuff that’s going on.”
He reckons there has been lots of good stuff going on in Munster, including the work of attack coach Mike Prendergast and defence coach Denis Leamy.
Prendergast and Leamy were re-contracted last season before the arrival of McMillan, so they’ve been busy building a coaching relationship since the Kiwi’s arrival and the assistant coaches’ return from being on Ireland’s summer tour to Georgia and Portugal.
With Munster forwards coach Alex Codling still away on Ireland Women duty for the World Cup, McMillan has been leading the coaching of the forwards in pre-season, which included a friendly against Gloucester last week and another against Bath this Friday.
He wants Prendergast and Leamy to continue doing their work in attack and defence, even if there are tweaks McMillan can make.
McMillan with Munster defence coach Denis Leamy. Ryan Byrne / INPHO
Ryan Byrne / INPHO / INPHO
“Everything that we are doing good, I don’t find any reason to disrupt that but it’s also my job and one of the reasons why people brought me in is to be a little bit of that disruptor – to bring a different set of eyes and look at things a little bit differently and to challenge the way things are being done,” said McMillan, who brought head of athletic performance Brad Mayo and team manager Martyn Vercoe from New Zealand with him.
“That doesn’t mean that we have to change. It just means that we may have to think about the opportunities that we may be missing.
“I definitely have a preference around some things and I’ve been putting those suggestions forward. We debate and we don’t always agree but at some stage you’ve got to commit and move forward. I think we have been doing a great job around that.
“That to me is a highly functioning coaching group. Not one that just agrees with everything I say. I want to be challenged. I think the other assistants need to be challenged. Out of that, we will look at the game a little bit deeper and what we need to do to be successful.”
McMillan’s Chiefs team were thrilling to watch at times but he pointed out that they kicked more than any other team in Super Rugby. Balance will also be key in Munster.
His Chiefs team also had an uncompromising hard edge when they were at their best and it’s another element McMillan believes is essential in his new role.
“From the outside looking in, I have always seen Munster as a team that, especially when they have enjoyed huge success, is one that is built around a solid platform up front and a team that is tough and who will scrap for everything.
“We certainly want to be a representation of those things.”
To that end, training has been a little old-school at times during pre-season. Munster have been running hills, boxing, and doing some lung-busting swimming sessions in the Olympic-sized pool at the University of Limerick.
They have been getting out around the province to see supporters with a training camp at Rockwell College in Tipperary, an opening training session at Ennis RFC in Clare, with a visit to Castleisland in Kerry to come next week, as well as trips to Waterford and Cork on the agenda.
This connection to supporters is another thing McMillan is big on.
“Munster as a club is well respected around the world, and equally the supporters are,
The Red Army,” he said.
“And when we talk about the Red Army, I don’t see it being them and us; I see us all being part of that army.”
Whatever about the culture and the connection with fans, McMillan knows the quality of his squad is as crucial as anything. Irish-qualified centre Dan Kelly and returning out-half JJ Hanrahan have joined over the summer, with hooker Lee Barron, loosehead Michael Milne, and wing Andrew Smith having already come in last season.
McMillan with Andy Farrell in New Zealand in 2022. Photosport / Jeremy Ward/INPHO
Photosport / Jeremy Ward/INPHO / Jeremy Ward/INPHO
While he said Munster aren’t currently in discussion with any players about moves to the province, McMillan continues to look at possibilities, particularly given that there are “a couple of positions where I feel like we’re a little light in experience.”
But McMillan highlighted the need for him to understand how good each player in the Munster group is. Beyond Ireland internationals, he didn’t know much about this group before getting the job, so he’s keen not to “make any assumptions around people’s ability without actually quantifying it.”
He acknowledges the fact that Munster have lost huge experience and leadership since last season due to the departures of Peter O’Mahony, Conor Murray, Stephen Archer, Dave Kilcoyne, and Rory Scannell.
But he hopes new voices will emerge more strongly now.
“I use somebody like John Hodnett as an example. He’s a player that’s highly respected as a player in this environment. He’s been a fairly regular starter and if you saw him walk around the building, he’s relatively quiet, a little bit cheeky, but he’s found a real voice and, you know, when you actually stop and listen, he’s got a lot to offer in that space.
“The absence of those guys will be felt, especially when you get put under the blowtorch, but that’s created a lot of opportunity for others to step forward and demonstrate the leadership that they bring to the table.”
McMillan highlighted Craig Casey as a key man in terms of leadership, as he said he thinks Tadhg Beirne will continue as captain this season.
Munster have had to deal with injury crises in the past two seasons and McMillan pointed to the reality that every team needs its best players available as often as possible.
But his hope is that every single player in this Munster group can improve under his watch. McMillan has never written his rugby philosophy down in a concise, crystallised form but this is about as close as he gets to giving us a mantra.
“I’m all about player empowerment and trying to promote people to the next level,” he said.
“I see a big part of my job is to try get as many Munster players in green jerseys. There’s a lot to go into that.
“If Munster want to be successful, there are two ways you can do it. You can buy some talent in, or two, you can produce and develop it. There are some challenges around buying some talent, and I’m not suggesting that’s what we need to do. If you don’t have that ability or it’s not the approach you want to take, you need to develop it.
“Having robust pathways, talent ID, pathway systems, and growing your game from the bottom up is really important. That’s my basic philosophy around rugby, how to get people to the next level.
“I believe leaders create culture. Culture is driven by behaviours and behaviours determine outcomes.
“We’re driving hard standards and behaviours that will keep us in good stead when we’re under the blowtorch on game day. That has to be driven by myself.”
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The Kiwi 'disruptor' tasked with taking Munster to the next level
ONE OF THE first things Clayton McMillan addressed when he spoke to his Munster players for the first time as they kicked off pre-season in July was the inconsistency that has plagued the southern province.
Munster are capable of great performances on big days. Witness the trip to La Rochelle last season.
But they’ve also been too prone to big lapses in the other direction. A depressing home defeat to Edinburgh in Cork was among them in 2024/25.
New head coach McMillan’s thinking is that getting to those memorable highs isn’t the issue. It’s that Munster’s low points are simply too low.
“It almost seems to be ingrained in the Munster psyche that when our backs are against the wall or when we get into really big games that really matter, we have the ability to go to another level,” said McMillan in Limerick yesterday as he spoke to the Irish media for the first time.
“That’s admirable but we can’t have those days and then the next week turn up and lose to the team that, for all intents and purposes, we should beat.
“It’s about not necessarily judging ourselves on the days when we’re at our best. It’s about judging ourselves when we’re at our worst.”
He uses Tadhg Beirne as an example. Beirne’s best is a 9.5 out of 10. But even when he has an off day, it’s a 7.5 performance.
“It’s trying to achieve that with a good rugby team, where your best day at the office is a 9.5 and a poor one is a 7, not a 4 or a 5.
“If you’re at 7, you still give yourself a really good chance of winning that game. It’s about getting everybody’s level a little bit higher. Raising the floor instead of raising the bar.”
McMillan doesn’t come across as someone prone to getting over-excited. He is renowned as a figure of authority. The first thing that stood out to Munster’s players when he came up from New Zealand for a quick visit last season was what they call his “aura.”
The 51-year-old former policeman certainly has a presence about him. He was a big, powerful back row in his own playing days and built an excellent reputation as a coach with the Chiefs in his native New Zealand over the last few years.
McMillan had a good thing going at home. The Chiefs had become a consistent force, reaching the last three Super Rugby finals only to fall short in each of them. They played exciting, balanced, hard-edged rugby.
McMillan, who is seen as a future All Blacks coach in New Zealand, was still under contract and wasn’t looking for something new. His wife and two teenage children were happy. But then came a call asking if he’d be interested in the Munster job, which had been vacant since Graham Rowntree’s sudden exit last season.
McMillan had to think deeply. He had been at Thomond Park as head coach of the All Blacks XV in November 2024 and was impressed with the Munster fans. He saw the opportunity to “grow myself as a coach” and for his family to have a new experience.
And as he decided to take the leap and sign a three-year deal with the IRFU and Munster, he reached out to rugby folk who knew the lay of the land in Ireland. Rua Tipoki, Jason Holland, Joe Schmidt, and Rob Penney were among those he spoke to as he tried to get a sense of what was in store.
McMillan has also been doing lots of reading and speaking to people here about the history of Munster and its people. A big part of his success with the Chiefs was creating a culture the players bought into, much of it based around Māori traditions.
Now, he’s keeping his ears and eyes open for how things work in Munster. There have been a few early lessons.
“I asked the players for some feedback at the end of training and the training could have gone really well… but it seems to be the Irish way that they focused on the three or four things that didn’t go well in the training,” said McMillan, whose wife, Nataalia, 16-year-old son, Ari, and 14-year-old daughter, Peata, are settling in well in Limerick.
“When you speak to everyone, they say, ‘Oh, that’s just the Irish, that’s just how we are, we’re glass-half-empty type people.’ That’s not my words. That’s what other people are saying.
“That’s not right or wrong, it’s just a little bit different and, again, it’s just having some conversations with some people and saying, well, it’s important too that we recognise the good stuff that’s going on.”
He reckons there has been lots of good stuff going on in Munster, including the work of attack coach Mike Prendergast and defence coach Denis Leamy.
Prendergast and Leamy were re-contracted last season before the arrival of McMillan, so they’ve been busy building a coaching relationship since the Kiwi’s arrival and the assistant coaches’ return from being on Ireland’s summer tour to Georgia and Portugal.
With Munster forwards coach Alex Codling still away on Ireland Women duty for the World Cup, McMillan has been leading the coaching of the forwards in pre-season, which included a friendly against Gloucester last week and another against Bath this Friday.
He wants Prendergast and Leamy to continue doing their work in attack and defence, even if there are tweaks McMillan can make.
“Everything that we are doing good, I don’t find any reason to disrupt that but it’s also my job and one of the reasons why people brought me in is to be a little bit of that disruptor – to bring a different set of eyes and look at things a little bit differently and to challenge the way things are being done,” said McMillan, who brought head of athletic performance Brad Mayo and team manager Martyn Vercoe from New Zealand with him.
“That doesn’t mean that we have to change. It just means that we may have to think about the opportunities that we may be missing.
“I definitely have a preference around some things and I’ve been putting those suggestions forward. We debate and we don’t always agree but at some stage you’ve got to commit and move forward. I think we have been doing a great job around that.
“That to me is a highly functioning coaching group. Not one that just agrees with everything I say. I want to be challenged. I think the other assistants need to be challenged. Out of that, we will look at the game a little bit deeper and what we need to do to be successful.”
McMillan’s Chiefs team were thrilling to watch at times but he pointed out that they kicked more than any other team in Super Rugby. Balance will also be key in Munster.
His Chiefs team also had an uncompromising hard edge when they were at their best and it’s another element McMillan believes is essential in his new role.
“From the outside looking in, I have always seen Munster as a team that, especially when they have enjoyed huge success, is one that is built around a solid platform up front and a team that is tough and who will scrap for everything.
“We certainly want to be a representation of those things.”
To that end, training has been a little old-school at times during pre-season. Munster have been running hills, boxing, and doing some lung-busting swimming sessions in the Olympic-sized pool at the University of Limerick.
They have been getting out around the province to see supporters with a training camp at Rockwell College in Tipperary, an opening training session at Ennis RFC in Clare, with a visit to Castleisland in Kerry to come next week, as well as trips to Waterford and Cork on the agenda.
This connection to supporters is another thing McMillan is big on.
“Munster as a club is well respected around the world, and equally the supporters are,
The Red Army,” he said.
“And when we talk about the Red Army, I don’t see it being them and us; I see us all being part of that army.”
Whatever about the culture and the connection with fans, McMillan knows the quality of his squad is as crucial as anything. Irish-qualified centre Dan Kelly and returning out-half JJ Hanrahan have joined over the summer, with hooker Lee Barron, loosehead Michael Milne, and wing Andrew Smith having already come in last season.
While he said Munster aren’t currently in discussion with any players about moves to the province, McMillan continues to look at possibilities, particularly given that there are “a couple of positions where I feel like we’re a little light in experience.”
But McMillan highlighted the need for him to understand how good each player in the Munster group is. Beyond Ireland internationals, he didn’t know much about this group before getting the job, so he’s keen not to “make any assumptions around people’s ability without actually quantifying it.”
He acknowledges the fact that Munster have lost huge experience and leadership since last season due to the departures of Peter O’Mahony, Conor Murray, Stephen Archer, Dave Kilcoyne, and Rory Scannell.
But he hopes new voices will emerge more strongly now.
“I use somebody like John Hodnett as an example. He’s a player that’s highly respected as a player in this environment. He’s been a fairly regular starter and if you saw him walk around the building, he’s relatively quiet, a little bit cheeky, but he’s found a real voice and, you know, when you actually stop and listen, he’s got a lot to offer in that space.
“The absence of those guys will be felt, especially when you get put under the blowtorch, but that’s created a lot of opportunity for others to step forward and demonstrate the leadership that they bring to the table.”
McMillan highlighted Craig Casey as a key man in terms of leadership, as he said he thinks Tadhg Beirne will continue as captain this season.
Munster have had to deal with injury crises in the past two seasons and McMillan pointed to the reality that every team needs its best players available as often as possible.
But his hope is that every single player in this Munster group can improve under his watch. McMillan has never written his rugby philosophy down in a concise, crystallised form but this is about as close as he gets to giving us a mantra.
“I’m all about player empowerment and trying to promote people to the next level,” he said.
“I see a big part of my job is to try get as many Munster players in green jerseys. There’s a lot to go into that.
“If Munster want to be successful, there are two ways you can do it. You can buy some talent in, or two, you can produce and develop it. There are some challenges around buying some talent, and I’m not suggesting that’s what we need to do. If you don’t have that ability or it’s not the approach you want to take, you need to develop it.
“Having robust pathways, talent ID, pathway systems, and growing your game from the bottom up is really important. That’s my basic philosophy around rugby, how to get people to the next level.
“I believe leaders create culture. Culture is driven by behaviours and behaviours determine outcomes.
“We’re driving hard standards and behaviours that will keep us in good stead when we’re under the blowtorch on game day. That has to be driven by myself.”
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Clayton McMillan Head Coach long read Munster new boss New Zealand