Munster head coach Clayton McMillan believes Jack Crowley deserves his chance in the Ireland number 10 shirt against New Zealand at Soldier Field in Chicago on Saturday week.
“Well, on the evidence of what I’ve seen and what I saw on the weekend [against Leinster], I think he deserves an opportunity to jump in the number 10 jersey for Ireland. Obviously that’s not my decision to make, but I’m not sure what else he could have done if last week was an audition.”
McMillan also expanded on Crowley’s importance to his province.
“He’s one of a number of people that are critical to the success of Munster moving forward. The success of the team is never on one person’s shoulders, you need a good cluster of leadership, you need cohesion and cohesion comes from building a squad that is together for a while.
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“There’s some young guys that have been coming through the system, there’s some old guys that are still around here and we just need to make sure that when things get challenging we don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.
“We know we’ve got good people in the building, we’ve just got to ride the highs and the lows, find that consistency and obviously Jack and Tadhg [Beirne], Craig Casey and a number of others are all integral to providing some leadership that we need to get to where we want.”
McMillan has made seven changes to the Munster starting XV from that statement bonus-point win over Leinster at Croke Park for their second consecutive interpro derby when hosting Connacht at Thomond Park on Saturday (kick-off 7.45pm).
The unlucky Brian Gleeson not only misses out on the trip to Chicago with the Irish squad but will be sidelined for six to 10 weeks due to the elbow injury he suffered last Saturday.
Edwin Edogbo also missed out on the trip to Chicago due to the concussion he suffered in Croke Park on his first start since December 2023, while winger Andrew Smith and hooker Diarmuid Barron were other casualties from last Saturday.
Against that John Hodnett and Diarmuid Kilgallen both start on their first appearances of the campaign after recovering from injury.
With Beirne, Crowley and Tom Farrell among the Irish squad in Chicago, as well as last weekend’s absentees Casey and Thomas Ahern, the side sees Alex Nankivell, JJ Hanrahan, Lee Barron, Jean Kleyn and Gavin Coombes promoted from the bench to the starting XV.
Jack O’Donoghue assumes the captaincy from Beirne and academy scrumhalf Jake O’Riordan is set for his Munster debut off the bench. The 20-year-old product of Bruff RFC, St Munchin’s College and UL Bohs now plays for Young Munster in the Energia All-Ireland League.
Evan O’Connell and Shay McCarthy are also in line for their first appearances of the season, which means Munster are on course to use 41 players over the first five rounds of the URC season.
Gleeson has undergone surgery for what McMillan described as “a relatively nasty elbow fracture” and estimated a return around Christmas.
“It’s really unfortunate after he was named in a supporting role for the Irish team and the time he was out on the field [against Leinster] he was impressive. That’s a setback but that happens in rugby. We are grateful we’ve got someone with the experience of Gavin Coombes to come in and continue the good work he’s been doing.”
Edogbo should return for the game against the Stormers on November 29th while scrumhalf Paddy Patterson was “a little under the weather”. Diarmuid Barron has a minor neck strain and Smith suffered hamstring and MCL injuries.
After reaching such an evident emotional high last week, McMillan maintained it had been “pretty easy” for the squad to switch its focus to a game against Connacht.
“We were delighted with the outcome on the weekend but come Monday, we just reviewed the game, like we would every other week, and just keep reminding ourselves that’s in the rear vision mirror now. And for all the pats on the back it’s a short distance from that to a kick up the backside if we don’t get the job done again this weekend.”
Connacht have lost two of their three games to date to sit 11 points adrift of Munster. Yet McMillan and his players are affording their dangerous neighbours every respect.
“They potentially haven’t got the outcomes they’ve wanted from the first few rounds but they certainly haven’t been far away. They were unlucky last week,” he said in reference to their 28-27 defeat by the Bulls.
“A lot of the guys have talked about the rich history between Connacht and Munster and it’s never an easy game. We are expecting them at their best and we’ll need to be at ours if we want the desired outcome.”
“They’ve got threats right across the park and the best performing lineout in the competition. It has been for a number of years. They’re a dangerous side and I know a fair bit about Josh Ioane, I coached him for a number of years and I’m well aware of what he can bring to the table and how he can stress opposition teams.
“We can’t be a team that’s easily satisfied. We’ve just got to keep going out the next week and chasing that feeling of being proud of our performance and getting better.”
MUNSTER (v Connacht): Shane Daly; Diarmuid Kilgallen, Dan Kelly, Alex Nankivell, Thaakir Abrahams; JJ Hanrahan, Ethan Coughlan; Michael Milne, Lee Barron, John Ryan; Jean Kleyn, Fineen Wycherley; Jack O’Donoghue (capt), John Hodnett, Gavin Coombes.
Replacements: Niall Scannell, Jeremy Loughman, Ronan Foxe, Evan O’Connell, Ruadhan Quinn, Jake O’Riordan, Tony Butler, Shay McCarthy.
