Mandatory Credit ©INPHO/Dan Sheridan
Danny Brosnan
It’s the 2000s. What a time to be a Munster supporter, league titles, champions cup finals, European nights. The excitement, the drama, the memories.
Who’d have thought we’d go eighteen years without another appearance in a European final.
Who could have foreseen the slow collapse of Munster? The eleven year league drought? The sudden and seismic collapse of a once giant of Europe.
The giant awakens. 2000-2005.
We make too champions cup final appearances. The 02 final remembered for the hand of Neil Back. The next season was the miracle match. Needing a bouns point plus a 27 or more winning margin, which we got. Munster were the team to watch out for.
One Celtic League win in that period of time was our only major trophy.
The giant conquers 06-11
Everything starting fall in place for Munster, the players the coaches, the games.
06 in Cardiff, we get to the promised land and return there again two years later. The two wins really put us as the Irish province. Unfortunately a tide of change was coming.
Champions Cup semi final 2009, Croke Park vs Leinster. We got well and truly out preformed.
We do lift the league trophy that year and again in 2011 and let’s not forget the 42 phases against Northampton.
The slow decline.
Little by little over the seasons you could a little drop in Munster, like a drip from a tap. We’d players retire and leave which we replaced. But something wasn’t there.
We contended in Europe and League front making the league finals in 15, 17 and 21.
But a once sharp edge was slowly becoming more and more blunt.
Some placed blame on the coaches and players, seemed perfectly correct at the time. We had good player’s, but things didn’t seem to go our way.
The false dawn.
About half way through the 21/22 season Johan Van Grann announced he was leaving Munster a season early. Most of the backroom staff left with him. All bar Graham Rowntree, who was announced as head coach later in the season.
What a first season for him. A very shaky start but progress was slowly coming in. We got eliminated in the last 16 of the revamped champions cup but it was a lesson well learned as we ended up winning the URC.
The following season we topped the league and exited at the semi final stage. A last 16 was on the cards again for Munster.
It was the 24/25 season that things really started. A shaky start to the season and after two losses on our South Africa tour. Munster and Graham Rowntree parted reasons. Yet no one really knows as to why. Costello took the reigns temporarily as the hunt for a head coach started. The backroom staff were handed contracts before the Clayton McMillan was announced as new head coach.
Coming into the current season Munster shot out of the blocks. But after the international break. The cracks became fault lines. Sub standard performance’s losing matches we should have won.
Going from worse to even worse. Out of the Champions Cup and into the challenge cup. Having 45 points put on by the sharks, our overall performance against Exeter seeing us out of Europe. Four games left in the league to secure a top eight finish. We are on the verge of arguably our worst low in the modern professional era.
Where did the rot begin?
From a few supporters I’ve talked to and my own personal opinion thrown in as well.
The rot started shortly after Declan Kidney left. Not straight away but slowly and surely.
One person saying that heavily relying on the school’s system instead instead of the clubs hasn’t helped. In fairness it’s a good point, the club system has always been our backbone but relying on one over the other is going to have a huge effect on who’s coming through the academy and progressing onto senior level. I know only a fraction of who ends in the academy makes an impact in the senior squad.
I personally feel that’s had its effect on why home grown lads aren’t coming through as much.
From a financial standpoint, the redevelopment of Thomond Park has put somewhat of tighten on the purse strings. Add in the fact that the stadium isn’t selling out anymore which hasn’t helped. But what really has shown our financial situation at the moment is asking employees to take redundancy. So where’s the money being spent?
Some have stated it was Current CEO Ian Flanagan that’s the issue. An man that’s been in the job since October 2019. But I think this started under Garrett Fitzgerald tenure as CEO. The development of Thomond while expecting the good times to last was a huge starting point. The fact we didn’t forsee the development of Munster grown players to take over from the players going out which was a huge issue.
We’ve had a few good players come through. Conor Murray, Peter O’Mahony, Keith Earls, Simon Zebo all who’ve come and rode off into the sunset. Craig Casey, Gavin Coombes, Jack Crowley, the Edogbo brothers are and have set there mark.
But we haven’t had a good front row since Horan, Flannery and the bull Hayes. Nevermind the various good coaches we’ve seen come and go in that time. Whether they were assistant or head.
But like most situations the buck stops at the top and the culture they implement. Fitzgerald oversaw our rise and the start of our fall. Flanagan has, for all his best intentions, has seen a sudden high and a quicker downfall.
An empire’s first fall…….
Like all great empires, an unchecked empire is a doomed empire. It falls from external sources well after it has fallen from within. Unfortunately Munster seems to have fallen and fallen well.
But like the Phoenix from the ashes it can rise again. All the talks of tribalism, if true, have to be put aside. We have a rich history unfortunately in the shadow of a tough time. A history where we were united despite our differences not standing against our fellow people on opposite sides of a devide.
We’ve rebuilt as much as we can from the glory days on the field. I think it’s time to rebuild from the boardroom now.
Stand up a fight. We haven’t heard the bell.