JACK O’DONOGHUE IS happy to talk through the different aspects of Munster’s win in Croke Park last weekend in good detail. And why wouldn’t he be? As the man himself says, “I’m in my 11th season now and I haven’t had many days like that.”
Munster regrouped to review the game on Monday, minus the lucky few travelling to Chicago with Andy Farrell’s Ireland squad, but the message was as much about turning the page. A dip at home against Connacht this weekend would sour much of the good feeling generated by that statement showing in Dublin.
“You cherish that, you bank the memories,” O’Donoghue says of the Leinster win.
“We reviewed it like we normally would, like it wasn’t anything special, we didn’t pat ourselves on the back that that’s job done. It was flipping the focus to Connacht and it’s the exact same when you lose. You don’t dwell on a loss too long because you have to turn the page and that’s the beauty of Clayton, he’s brilliant at that.”
Jack O'Donoghue celebrates after the Leinster game with his brother Nick. Tom Maher / INPHO
Tom Maher / INPHO / INPHO
Clayton being new head coach Clayton McMillan, who joined the province over the summer and is already making a big impact. Across the opening four rounds of the URC he watched his team win games the hard way before piecing together a more complete performance against Leinster. The attack produced quality moments as Munster hit their hosts for four tries, but arguably the most impressive part of their game was the relentless defensive effort.
O’Donoghue, who played the full, exhausting, 80 minutes in the back row, says for the most part he couldn’t ‘enjoy’ the occasion given the potential of a Leinster comeback, but pinpoints the lengthy defensive stand midway through the second half as a moment where he started to feel it might just be Munster’s day.
I felt 60 minutes into the game, we held them out for I think three minutes and I remember Tom Farrell came over to me, and I was bolloxed at this stage, and he’s like, ‘we have them, we have them!’
“And it’s those little things that you just start believing then. I didn’t want to let myself believe but it was probably at that moment, you’ve held them out for so long, they’ve thrown everything at us, and we’ve been in games where you’re hammering at a tryline for ages and you don’t score and your head goes down because you’ve exerted so much energy trying to get over the line. And then you get a turnout penalty and they kick it back 40 metres and you think we have to start again, and that’s what we did to Leinster.
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“You just take a bit of belief away from them and then you grow yourselves and you’re imposing.”
Many of those defensive sets ended with Leinster turning away in frustration as Munster celebrated another turnover, as was the case when Tadhg Beirne ripped the ball away to end that long passage of play around the hour mark, energising his teammates in the process.
O’Donoghue and Brian Gleeson line up Leinster's RG Snyman. Ben Brady / INPHO
Ben Brady / INPHO / INPHO
“Mentally it’s exhausting because you’re switching on, like Leinster, they’re deadly, Gibson-Park’s throwing a flat pass in front of four people and he’s coming out of blindside into your outside shoulder.
“When you get a penalty though, you get so much energy. You get energy off the crowd and the lads around you in those small celebrations and you start building. You get energy off that. It’s such a weird feeling, it’s hard to describe but while it’s incredibly exhausting, you just get another wave of energy like, ‘we can go again’, and that’s exactly what we did.”
O’Donoghue mentions a couple of Munster’s standout players from the night but deserves a nod himself. The Waterford man was exceptional across a massive shift, joining Fineen Wycherley and Gavin Coombes at the top of the tackle charts with 20.
“I’m actually really enjoying the rugby I’m playing and I think the disappointment from the end of last season was a massive motivating factor coming into this season, missing out on big games over in La Rochelle and the quarter-final against the Sharks at the end of the season.
“Over the off-season you can put your head down and say ‘fuck that’, old coach or whatever but you have a new chance to set a mark out and that’s something I try to do and I’ve been involved in all the games so far and I’ve had big impacts in them and stuff and that’s where I want to be.
O’Donoghue is enjoying his rugby under Clayton McMillan. Morgan Treacy / INPHO
Morgan Treacy / INPHO / INPHO
“I want to be playing every game, although Clayton says you won’t be and that’s great because, you know, squad freshness, giving lads opportunity, building competition is huge but, yeah, I’m really enjoying what I’m doing and I think that’s just something I’m trying to do personally, build on performances.”
After watching his Munster teammate Tom Farrell get called into Ireland camp at 32 earlier this week, we wonder if O’Donoghue – who was capped twice across 2016 and 2017 by Joe Schmidt – has eyes on the soon-to-be-named Ireland A squad for November’s trip to Spain.
“I’m 31 years of age! I think, not belittling or anything like that, I think when you’re looking at a World Cup cycle and looking at players, I don’t know if I’m going to be in that mixer and I’m okay with that.
“That’s something that was probably really tough for me to say (previously) but it allows you then to play with a freedom with your club and when there’s a squad announcement you’re not unbelievably disappointed, your head doesn’t drop, your form doesn’t drop.
“That’s something I found years ago when you’re in and out of squads, it was a rollercoaster. It was a mental rollercoaster. You could be playing unbelievably well and don’t get picked and then all of a sudden your head goes down and your form goes down and you find yourself out of your provincial squad and, you know, you’re almost saying well, that’s why you didn’t get picked.
“Certainly when I was 26, 27 years of age I had a completely different mindset and I think your mindset has to shift because otherwise you find yourself in a dark hole mentally and stuff like that.
“But for me once you are able to park that, because that’s completely out of my control, what I can control is what I do in the 80 minutes for Munster here on the weekend and I’m really enjoying doing that.”
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'Missing out on big games has been a massive motivating factor'
JACK O’DONOGHUE IS happy to talk through the different aspects of Munster’s win in Croke Park last weekend in good detail. And why wouldn’t he be? As the man himself says, “I’m in my 11th season now and I haven’t had many days like that.”
Munster regrouped to review the game on Monday, minus the lucky few travelling to Chicago with Andy Farrell’s Ireland squad, but the message was as much about turning the page. A dip at home against Connacht this weekend would sour much of the good feeling generated by that statement showing in Dublin.
“You cherish that, you bank the memories,” O’Donoghue says of the Leinster win.
“We reviewed it like we normally would, like it wasn’t anything special, we didn’t pat ourselves on the back that that’s job done. It was flipping the focus to Connacht and it’s the exact same when you lose. You don’t dwell on a loss too long because you have to turn the page and that’s the beauty of Clayton, he’s brilliant at that.”
Clayton being new head coach Clayton McMillan, who joined the province over the summer and is already making a big impact. Across the opening four rounds of the URC he watched his team win games the hard way before piecing together a more complete performance against Leinster. The attack produced quality moments as Munster hit their hosts for four tries, but arguably the most impressive part of their game was the relentless defensive effort.
O’Donoghue, who played the full, exhausting, 80 minutes in the back row, says for the most part he couldn’t ‘enjoy’ the occasion given the potential of a Leinster comeback, but pinpoints the lengthy defensive stand midway through the second half as a moment where he started to feel it might just be Munster’s day.
“And it’s those little things that you just start believing then. I didn’t want to let myself believe but it was probably at that moment, you’ve held them out for so long, they’ve thrown everything at us, and we’ve been in games where you’re hammering at a tryline for ages and you don’t score and your head goes down because you’ve exerted so much energy trying to get over the line. And then you get a turnout penalty and they kick it back 40 metres and you think we have to start again, and that’s what we did to Leinster.
“You just take a bit of belief away from them and then you grow yourselves and you’re imposing.”
Many of those defensive sets ended with Leinster turning away in frustration as Munster celebrated another turnover, as was the case when Tadhg Beirne ripped the ball away to end that long passage of play around the hour mark, energising his teammates in the process.
“It physically takes everything,” O’Donoghue continues.
“Mentally it’s exhausting because you’re switching on, like Leinster, they’re deadly, Gibson-Park’s throwing a flat pass in front of four people and he’s coming out of blindside into your outside shoulder.
“When you get a penalty though, you get so much energy. You get energy off the crowd and the lads around you in those small celebrations and you start building. You get energy off that. It’s such a weird feeling, it’s hard to describe but while it’s incredibly exhausting, you just get another wave of energy like, ‘we can go again’, and that’s exactly what we did.”
O’Donoghue mentions a couple of Munster’s standout players from the night but deserves a nod himself. The Waterford man was exceptional across a massive shift, joining Fineen Wycherley and Gavin Coombes at the top of the tackle charts with 20.
“I’m actually really enjoying the rugby I’m playing and I think the disappointment from the end of last season was a massive motivating factor coming into this season, missing out on big games over in La Rochelle and the quarter-final against the Sharks at the end of the season.
“Over the off-season you can put your head down and say ‘fuck that’, old coach or whatever but you have a new chance to set a mark out and that’s something I try to do and I’ve been involved in all the games so far and I’ve had big impacts in them and stuff and that’s where I want to be.
“I want to be playing every game, although Clayton says you won’t be and that’s great because, you know, squad freshness, giving lads opportunity, building competition is huge but, yeah, I’m really enjoying what I’m doing and I think that’s just something I’m trying to do personally, build on performances.”
After watching his Munster teammate Tom Farrell get called into Ireland camp at 32 earlier this week, we wonder if O’Donoghue – who was capped twice across 2016 and 2017 by Joe Schmidt – has eyes on the soon-to-be-named Ireland A squad for November’s trip to Spain.
“I’m 31 years of age! I think, not belittling or anything like that, I think when you’re looking at a World Cup cycle and looking at players, I don’t know if I’m going to be in that mixer and I’m okay with that.
“That’s something that was probably really tough for me to say (previously) but it allows you then to play with a freedom with your club and when there’s a squad announcement you’re not unbelievably disappointed, your head doesn’t drop, your form doesn’t drop.
“That’s something I found years ago when you’re in and out of squads, it was a rollercoaster. It was a mental rollercoaster. You could be playing unbelievably well and don’t get picked and then all of a sudden your head goes down and your form goes down and you find yourself out of your provincial squad and, you know, you’re almost saying well, that’s why you didn’t get picked.
“Certainly when I was 26, 27 years of age I had a completely different mindset and I think your mindset has to shift because otherwise you find yourself in a dark hole mentally and stuff like that.
“But for me once you are able to park that, because that’s completely out of my control, what I can control is what I do in the 80 minutes for Munster here on the weekend and I’m really enjoying doing that.”
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