THIS SATURDAY MUNSTER go back to the scene of one of their most memorable victories in recent years, with Graham Rowntree’s side heading for Dublin for a URC Interpro derby clash with Leinster.
When the two provinces met at the tail-end of last season Munster recorded a statement URC semi-final win courtesy of Jack Crowley’s nerveless late drop goal. Munster then backed that win up by going on to lift the trophy in Cape Town and their status as URC champions had added some extra heat to a rivalry that had become increasingly one-sided over the years.
Leinster have been the dominant force in Irish rugby but these are good times for Munster. The URC success came earlier than expected in Rowntree’s tenure and the province have a promising crop of young players pushing through.
Crowley is a case in point, the Cork native overtaking both Ben Healy and Joey Carbery last season while taking his chances with Ireland, too.
Munster scrum-half Craig Casey goes back a long way with Crowley and speaking at yesterday’s 2023/24 Investec Champions Cup season launch in London, the 24-year-old explained how their relationship has developed over the years.
“He has been brilliant in fairness,” said Casey.
“You can see he has come on leaps and bounds over the last two years. You can see that at the highest level. Getting his first (Ireland) cap last year was massive for him, after being on the Emerging Ireland tour he took massive confidence from it like you wouldn’t believe. When he came back from that tour, he was really bouncing around the place and took the leadership role as the ‘10’ to the next level that I haven’t seen from Jack.
“He gained confidence from that and then obviously getting that Irish cap, he has probably gained even more confidence. Then he took the reins for pretty much most of the season last year, with two unbelievable out-halves behind him in Joey (Carbery) and Ben (Healy).
“He kind of kept them at bay and made the ‘10’ jersey his own that season and drove us on to the URC, which was great.
Our relationship has always been brilliant in fairness. We are very close off the field as friends but then on the field, we would have a really good relationship.
“I think we are both probably obsessed with rugby. We would always be texting or chatting about what went wrong here in training, what we would have done better here in training, in this game, did I do well enough for you here and he will let me know if I did well enough or if I didn’t do well enough. I do the exact same. We kind of have that relationship that we bounce off each other every day.”
Munster’s young half-backs – who have started two URC games together since returning from the World Cup – first crossed paths when playing underage rugby.
“We actually didn’t really play too many games (together) as young fellas. I played against Jack quite a lot. He was a scrum-half for Bandon and I was scrum-half for Ardscoil.
“I’ll let him tell you how that went for him. I always love going back to him because I definitely got the upper-hand on him that day. He almost went crying off the field, so I love reminding him about that.
“But no, he was a great fella. Underage, I would have trained with him a lot. He was still at ‘9’, we would have trained with each other when we came through the Munster system. That’s when I first fully met him and then he moved to ‘10’ and ‘15’, and we would have played a few Munster ‘A’ games. To see his evolution has been crazy actually. I think the understanding we have as young fellas and coming from similar enough backgrounds has given us a head start in our relationship.”
Casey has even closer ties with Mossy Lawler, Munster’s new skills coach who is looking to help push the squad to another level again this year. Lawler, who joined Munster from Connacht over the summer, is Casey’s uncle.
“I would have been very, very close to Mossy. I only lived about five doors down from him when I was growing up as a little fella and then when I moved house out to Ardnacrusha he followed us and only lived across the road from me there. So I was constantly around him, would see him a few days a week, would go kicking with him a few days a week, passing with him a few days a week.
Funnily enough he was actually my first gym coach when started off in the gym at about 13, so he started off that whole process for me. In terms of my rugby career he’s been absolutely massive for me.
“The dynamic since he came in has been brilliant. I thought we would butt heads a bit more because we’re two bitter fellas when we want to be but it’s been class. I’m really learning loads off him, a really good fella.
“He texted me two weeks ago for our first official one-on-one session, which was crazy considering we’ve probably done around 250 sessions together but it’s been brilliant. I love having him in, he’s a really intense rugby fella, which is what I absolutely love.
“As a skills coach he’s been absolutely brilliant for me. He’s tweaked a few things that have helped me massively and given me confidence in things as well that I wouldn’t felt confidence in myself. So adding on that, he’s been brilliant.”