ON WEDNESDAY’S RUGBY Weekly Extra podcast for The42 members, former Ireland and Melbourne Rebels performance analyst Eoin Toolan joined Gavan Casey to discuss Eddie Jones’ prospective new role with Rugby Australia, Bernard Laporte’s corruption scandal, and the weekend’s Champions Cup fare.
Prior to analysing Munster’s defeat to Toulouse in their European curtain-raiser, Toolan and Casey assessed the in-form John Ryan’s impending departure from the southern province following his short-term return, with the 24-cap Ireland international now confirmed to have signed a deal to represent the Chiefs in Super Rugby next year.
Casey recalled meeting Scotland international prop Murray McCallum at Munster’s victory away to Edinburgh last Friday week, a chance encounter during which McCallum “waxed lyrical” about Ryan’s contribution during their shared stint with the Barbarians throughout November.
The Cork man’s apparent professionalism during a typically more social international window with the Baa Baas would appear to have paid dividends by bolstering the demand for his services: in discussing his signing of Ryan, Chiefs coach Clayton McMillan said that the Waikato-based franchise “have players who have opposed and played alongside him on the recent All Blacks XV tour and Barbarians fixtures”, and that they “strongly advocated his ability and character.”
Toolan described Ryan’s move as “brilliant for him.”
“Maybe he was on the non-alcoholic beers during the week as well [with the Baa Baas], he could have played it really smart!”, the former Rebels coach laughed.
“It has become a bit of a loss [to Munster], hasn’t it? And you’d wonder what the relationship was like between player and province, obviously, off the back of Munster releasing him to Wasps last season. But it’s exciting to see how he goes down in Super Rugby.
“There’s probably not as much of premium on set piece in that profile of tournament,” Toolan added. “Oli Jager’s obviously done a great job there.
We had Jamie Hagan on the pod a couple of months ago, he’s the other Irish prop who has gone to Super Rugby. And it’ll just be the adjustment for Ryan in terms of a completely different emphasis on style of play, on his ability to get around the field. It’ll be a test of his core skills: catch-pass, footwork, defensively how he copes with multiple threats with serious ability; different types of teams: Moana Pasifika, Fijian Drua and the Australian teams all play very different types of rugby.
“It’ll be a brilliant test for him and, for us watching from afar, it’ll be brilliant to watch how he’s able to adapt and bring his skill set to the Chiefs.”
Toolan added that Ryan’s transition from a career built in Europe to week-on-week rugby in New Zealand would be “difficult” but that there has “definitely been a bridging of the gap between northern hemisphere and southern hemisphere”.
“I guess there’s probably more admiration coming from down south to what the teams up north are doing”, he said, “and they’re taking some of those learnings back to New Zealand and Australia.
“The gap is smaller but the speed of the game is something that will take time. You can do all the training you like but you might need a good, full season to acclimatise to that speed.
“Good on him [for making the move], and I just wish him all the best.”
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