IT WAS 2018 when Munster Rugby declared a bold ambition to be “THE BEST CLUB IN THE WORLD.”

The capital letters are not added for effect. That’s how the words were printed in Munster’s strategic plan for 2018 to 2021, a period in which the province targeted at least one frontline trophy.

They got close to achieving that particular goal, reaching the Pro14 final in 2021 but they lost that game to Leinster, and Munster fans had to wait until 2023 to celebrate their team lifting silverware when Graham Rowntree’s side pulled off an unexpected success.

That URC glory is less than three years ago, although it seems like further in the past amid Munster’s current challenges. They head into this weekend as a Challenge Cup team, rather than building up for the knock-out stages of the Champions Cup.

Munster’s strategic plans have changed since 2018, but the Challenge Cup is simply not where they want to be.

Clayton McMillan’s side will give it their all this weekend away to Exeter in the round of 16 and the lure of possible Champions Cup qualification means this competition needs to be taken seriously, yet it’s far from where those fans want to be watching their team.

That document from seven-and-a-half years ago is a relic, but it shows how ambitious the province was at the time.

To be fair to Munster, they did say that the goal wasn’t just about being the most successful club in the world on the pitch, beating every team before them.

“The best means you can do your best work at Munster, whatever the role,” was how it was framed.

Not long after that, assistant coaches Felix Jones and Jerry Flannery decided to take their skills elsewhere. They rejected contract offers to remain as Johann van Graan’s assistants.

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There has been a frustrating echo of that recently with Mike Prendergast’s decision to move on at the end of this season. There had been hope that the Limerick man would become Munster’s head coach at some point. Maybe that could still be the case in the future, but he has opted to leave for now, a year before the end of his contract.

This is just one way in which Munster seem to be caught in a cycle of seemingly taking two steps forward and one step back.

Van Graan was the man tasked with leading Munster forward after the early departure of Rassie Erasmus in 2017 and though the southern province threatened to become an elite force under van Graan, it never quite happened at the business end of the season.

Van Graan was set to continue as Munster boss beyond 2022, and was understood to have agreed a two-year contract extension, before then activating the six-month release clause in his deal to make an exit for Bath.

He is too honourable a man to ever publicly complain about Munster, but the understanding at the time was that van Graan had frustrations about how the province was being run.

So it was that van Graan moved on to Bath after five seasons to be replaced by forwards coach Graham Rowntree, who took on his first-ever head coaching role.

The URC success at the end of his first season was a welcome surprise and earned Rowntree a two-year extension in September 2023. But he left by “mutual agreement” just 13 months later. It seems the exact circumstances around that decision will never be publicly clarified.

Rowntree is now coaching in Japan, where his Urayasu D-Rocks team are bottom of League One after three wins in 13 games.

Munster spent the remainder of last season with Ian Costello acting as interim head coach, as attack specialist Prendergast had an increased influence on the team. 

Prendergast came out strongly in stating his desire to be appointed Rowntree’s successor, doing so when under the impression that he had a good chance of being appointed by Munster and the IRFU, who contract the four provincial head coaches in Ireland.

So it was galling for Prendergast to then see McMillan emerge as the front-runner and get signed to take over last summer. Munster gave Prendergast a bump by making him the ‘senior coach,’ but it was always going to be tricky for that pair to work together. It didn’t take long for Prendergast to see that he needed to move on.

Munster head coach Clayton McMillan. Tom O’Hanlon / INPHO Tom O’Hanlon / INPHO / INPHO

McMillan is highly regarded back in New Zealand and even seen as a potential future All Blacks head coach, so the IRFU and Munster felt they had pulled off quite the coup in signing him on a three-year deal.

Munster have been in poor form since their fast start to this season, but it would be wrong to judge McMillan so early into his tenure. We have seen many times in the past that it can take years for a head coach to fully realise their vision for a team.

He is now set to bring in his own attack coach – his former Chiefs assistant Roger Randle has been suggested as an obviously good fit – while McMillan will have had his say on which players he wants to keep in his squad and who is surplus to his requirements. 

It remains to be seen if McMillan has the playing talent to deliver what he wants on the pitch. When Munster are missing their key men – Tadhg Beirne, Craig Casey, and Jack Crowley – they look like a completely different force.

Any team misses its best players but the gap between Munster’s elite figures – those good enough to start international matches – and the rest is impossible to miss.

Munster have put a major renewed focus on stocking their senior squad with homegrown players in recent years. In the late 2010s, they had a habit of filling some holes in their squad with short-term signings from outside, some of whom were the “duds” that Conor Murray referred to in his autobiography last year.

Now, Munster’s strategy is that academy products, as well as some young Irish players from other provinces, make up the bulk of their squad. This has always been the model for Irish rugby, but Munster have been keen to pursue a more affordable approach that also delivers a squad of local players who care passionately about the red jersey. Fans love those kinds of stories.

Some of those youngsters have struggled to secure first-team places, but recent graduates like the Edogbo brothers, Edwin and Seán, and Brian Gleeson have top-level potential, while the current Ireland U20s team includes some promising Munster talent. That said, being a good U20 international is no guarantee of being a force in the professional game.

Overseeing Munster’s work in delivering homegrown players from the grassroots into the senior squad is general manager Costello, who moved into that role at the end of last season.

Costello has previously been an assistant coach, academy manager, and head of rugby operations for Munster, as well as spending five years coaching in England with Nottingham and Wasps. Those experiences mean Munster asked him to ensure “excellence, alignment and integration” across the club.

The hope is that Munster can produce good enough homegrown players to power top-end success. That was the case when the province won the Heineken Cup in 2006 and 2008. There were a couple of genuine rugby all-timers in that group, as well as several Irish greats. In fact, it was a freakishly good collection of local players.

Jack Crowley and Craig Casey at key for Munster. Billy Stickland / INPHO Billy Stickland / INPHO / INPHO

The current Munster squad is simply incomparable, but the province hopes that the likes of Gleeson and the Edogbo brothers can kick on and join Casey and Crowley, who are only 26, as part of a homegrown core in the starting XV.

Since scrum-half Murray and blindside flanker Peter O’Mahony made their Ireland debuts in 2011/12, Munster have delivered eight more homegrown players who have won more than 10 international caps.

Simon Zebo [35 caps], Dave Kilcoyne [56], Tommy O’Donnell [13], John Ryan [24], Niall Scannell [20], Casey [22], Crowley [28], and Calvin Nash [12] make up that group.

Whatever the reasons for that, Munster would have hoped for a stronger return from their pathway in the last 25 years.

That pathway will essentially be the making or breaking of the next chapter in Munster’s history. There will be no white knight riding over the horizon with bags full of cash to help Munster bring in a fresh crop of world-class players.

Munster’s effort to improve the pathway has been boosted by the money generated by their annual fundraising dinners in London, New York, and Dublin, some of which goes towards the salaries of development staff.

And the impending change in the IRFU’s player contracting model, which kicks in this August, will see the provinces – so essentially Leinster – contributing 40% of nationally-contracted players’ salaries for the first time, with all of that money going directly into improving the pathways in Munster, Ulster, and Connacht.

Of course, Munster can’t just wait around for five or 10 years for more promising players to come through. They need to get better now.

Springboks hooker Marnus van der Merwe is a good signing ahead of next season, the kind of hard-edged forward who Munster have been lacking enough of. Connacht tighthead Jack Aungier is also expected to join as Munster hope to fill that problem position.

As with the other three provinces, the IRFU have directed Munster to slightly reduce the size of their senior squad ahead of next season, so there will plenty of outgoings this summer. The trend across the provinces is that some non-Test-capped senior players and younger players heading for their mid-20s without yet having made a big impact – the middle tier of squads – are being squeezed out.

Sitting above the actual rugby set-up in Munster is the province’s Professional Game Board, the group that oversees all aspects of professional rugby in the province.

Marnus van der Merwe will join from Scarlets this summer. Mike Jones / INPHO Mike Jones / INPHO / INPHO

CEO Ian Flanagan is part of that board and he is a figure who has come in for renewed scrutiny in the wake of last week’s confirmation that Munster Rugby has offered voluntary redundancies to its staff.

It was shocking news to the rugby world, around which Munster are still seen as a big club, and underlined that all is not rosy.

Flanagan’s job involves maximising the revenue Munster generate through ticket sales, sponsorship, and other commercial endeavours.

The province has started bringing big games to Páirc Uí Chaoimh, a welcome move for fans in Cork and the east of the province, while Munster rent out their stadiums – Thomond Park and Musgrave Park – for concerts during rugby’s off-season.

Musgrave Park is known as Virgin Media Park due to its current sponsorship deal, but talk of selling naming rights for Thomond Park has yet to materialise into a contract that would presumably be a decent boost to the coffers.

The bottom line is that Munster need to be succeeding on the pitch if they are to generate greater revenues. Everything flows from the team playing well. Home knock-out games in the Champions Cup and big home play-offs in the URC can generate €1 million.

Munster didn’t have either of those last season and they aren’t involved in the Champions Cup knock-outs in this campaign, while they would need an excellent run to grab a home quarter-final in the URC.

Good teams draw in bigger crowds and sell more jerseys and attract better sponsors. The money from those things can then be sunk back into the squad or into the pathway. 

Munster are under pressure to qualify for the Champions Cup next season because a failure to do so would be yet another hit to their finances after many years of struggle. The announcement of voluntary redundancies only adds to the importance of remaining a top-level team.

Yet Munster seem to be caught in a cycle that prevents them from kicking onto a higher level consistently.

They have plenty going for them. The two aforementioned stadiums are their own, even if there is still plenty of debt to be paid back to the IRFU for Thomond Park, albeit in small increments well into the future.

Munster CEO Ian Flanagan. Ryan Byrne / INPHO Ryan Byrne / INPHO / INPHO

Munster have their impressive high performance centre in Limerick, which was heralded as being a key part in the province taking the next step when it was opened nearly a decade ago. No more of the madness of trekking between Cork and Limerick, they said.

There is a passionate fanbase around Munster and though the attendance numbers will always reflect results, the Red Army remain a force, especially when Munster go on the road in Europe.

There is huge wider public interest in Munster too. They are one of the most intriguing sporting sides in the country and further afield. New Zealand Rugby are still sending teams over to Limerick to play against them. Anyone in the media can tell you that Munster are big business.

And yet all of those things have downsides. With hurling having flourished in Limerick, some people wonder if that city will ever again be the crucial source of top-class players it once was. Others suggest that Munster’s main stadium should have been built in Cork, the biggest city in the province.

Despite having one training base, those who know the province well say there can still be something of a Limerick/Cork divide. And the media attention means that Munster come under greater scrutiny and attract more criticism than most rugby clubs.

There is rarely a dull moment when it comes to Munster.

The show goes on in Exeter this weekend, and it’s unclear where the drama leads next. Munster’s riveting journey has been full of twists and turns, some joyous highs and some woeful woes, with plenty of stuff somewhere in the middle.