Penney needs time to make his mark

IN FOCUS: WHAT NEXT FOR MUNSTER? GERRY THORNLEYon how patience will be required as Munster's new coach completes his management team and takes charge of a squad in transition

THE MORE you hear about Rob Penney the more you like him. He has, apparently, come across as a very solid individual, and an ambitious, innovative and relatively experienced coach who shares Munster’s hunger for success and is willing to leave Canterbury and take up a two-year contract.

He will also bring a fresh voice and ideally, he won’t be the only fresh voice.

To begin with, Penney has to complete his management ticket, for apart from Anthony Foley remaining on as forwards’ coach, there could be quite a turnover. Word is that Shaun Payne will be moving on after his low-profile stint as manager and that the likely replacement will be Niall O’Donovan.

This would be a shrewd choice.

He brings a wealth of experience and an understanding of the Munster zeitgeist, as well as a winning culture from his days as a Shannon player and coach, and assistant coach for both Munster and Ireland. He’s a good man, well-liked, has had a long relationship with Foley, another former Shannon number eight, and has a network of rugby contacts throughout the province.

The position regarding Paul McCarthy, who is also out of contract after an impressive year as scrum coach, is unclear, as is that of Ian Costello, the former Munster Academy head coach who was made full-time this season as skills coach after a season in a part-time role. He has another year on his contract. If the IRFU and Munster are genuine about developing indigenous coaches, it would seem a waste not to continue Costello’s development.

The key appointment will be the backs coach. Jason Holland’s contract expires at the end of the season and is not expected to be renewed. The likelihood is that they will look overseas as promoting Costello would probably be premature and Brian Walsh’s credentials seemingly do not mark him out on a professional career path despite his long years of impressive service at Cork Con.

Besides, with Penney already set to inherit Foley and possibly O’Donovan, Costello and McCarthy as well, it is preferable that the new man has the autonomy to bring in someone he has worked with or at least knows.

Coming from the other side of the world, and not until Penney completes his obligations with the Canterbury and the New Zealand Under-20 World Cup sides, bringing in his own man would also help him to hit the ground running.

Despite the thrilling 51-36 win away to Northampton which completed their six wins from six in the Heineken Cup pool stages, when the wingers scored four of their five tries, as their failure to translate possession into try-scoring chances against Ulster in the quarter-finals highlighted, Munster’s back play must needs improving.

Along with that, Penney will need time and patience. Very few other sides in Europe have gone through such a dramatic turnover in personnel over the last three years. Take the team which beat the Ospreys 43-9 in the quarter-final three years ago at Thomond Park, which left them within two games of their third Heineken Cup in four years and saw eight of them initially picked in the Lions’ squad the following week.

Of the team that played Ulster in the quarter-finals at the same ground last month, only four survived – Paul O’Connell, Ronan O’Gara, Lifeimi Mafi and Keith Earls. And of them Mafi is bound for Perpignan this summer. Ian Dowling, Jerry Flannery, John Hayes and Alan Quinlan have all retired, as has Barry Murphy (a replacement that day) with David Wallace and another replacement that day, Mick O’Driscoll, about to follow suit. Paul Warwick has left, as has another squad member against the Ospreys, Tony Buckley, with the London Irish-bound Tomás O’Leary about to follow suit.

A spate of injuries has also hit them hard (sidelining O’Connell, Doug Howlett, Denis Leamy and O’Leary for lengthy spells) and contributed to those retirements. Indeed, out of the entire 2008-’09 squad, only 11 will be there next season.

Tony McGahan also hastened the pace of change by bringing through Conor Murray, Simon Zebo, Felix Jones, Mike Sherry, Peter O’Mahony, Tommy O’Donnell and, not before time, Donnacha Ryan, amongst others. Ten players made their Heineken Cup debuts this season which, with O’Connell and O’Gara brilliantly passing on the baton, enabled Munster to win all six games in their pool, including doubles over last season’s finalists, a vengeful Northampton, and Castres.

Other clubs have struggled to manage such a transition. For example, Wasps (winners in 2004 and ’07) have almost fallen off the cliff and go into today’s Aviva Premiership relegation decider against Newcastle with the threat of administration hanging over them.

This was Munster’s first Heineken Cup campaign without any of those stalwarts Foley, Quinlan and Wallace, and while O’Mahony and O’Donnell (along with Dave O’Callaghan) have the potential to be pillars of the future, coming up against Stephen Ferris, Pedrie Wannenburg and Chris Henry, was a big ask, as it was for Zebo and Jones in that quarter-final.

The previous week, they were up against Seán O’Brien and Jamie Heaslip, first-choice Irish back-rowers.

Even so, these players head a core of fine young talent emerging from the much-maligned Munster academy. David Kilcoyne, Sherry especially, Stephen Archer, Ian Nagle, Dave Foley are tight forwards who could come through, as could winger Luke O’Dea. Those 10 Heineken Cup debutants and others will all be better for the experience they’ve gleaned this year.

Realistically it may take 12 to 24 months for them to get to the level of O’Brien, Heaslip, Ferris and Wannenburg, for example, but at least they will have grown together. It is also to Penney’s benefit therefore that the transition has already begun.

However it will take more than one European campaign to find a settled side and for a chunk of these players to come through as consistent performers and leaders at the top end of European club rugby; to reach where Leinster are now, ie with a core of leaders all pushing the squad forward.

You look at that Leinster team, buttressed by the return of Leo Cullen and Shane Jennings from their informative stints with Leicester, throw in Jamie Heaslip, Seán O’Brien, Jonathan Sexton and Brian O’Driscoll, and they’ve officer class oozing from almost every pore of the team. Even during the World Cup and occasionally since, Rhys Ruddock has filled the void. And it’s not just leadership on match days, but throughout match weeks as well.

Thus, no less than Leinster circa 2006, ’07 and ’08, Munster may still have some pain to go through, with Penney and co requiring time to mould all of this into anything like the force of old.

Successive home games to their local rivals, Leinster and Ulster, in League and Cup last month were a harsh yardstick as to where Munster are now. Both were lost by two clear scores, and although Munster weren’t that far away in the quarter-final against Ulster (one try apiece) it was far enough away at the top end of the European game not to be winning.

Leinster and Ulster are fortunate too in that they have one city and one base, with Leinster on the verge of moving to one all-embracing, state-of-the-art facility in UCD. Couple this with Leinster’s more advanced relationship with a more productive schools game, which is another challenge facing Munster.

One has sympathy for the Munster Branch here. Moving the entire operation to Limerick, given Thomond’s primacy over Musgrave Park, risks alienating the province’s biggest city. But being bilocated in two centres 100km apart is not logistically ideal. Jim Williams highlighted this back in 2004 and it is known to have remained a bone of contention for McGahan. From a training perspective one centre has to be preferable. It’s not just training, it’s the planning, staff meetings, building relationships, players doing extra training together, etc.

In all of this, there needs to be a dose of realism too. As last month’s quarter-final highlighted, Ulster have the better team right now, even if Munster still have the better squad – witness the latter winning the league last season, again outperforming Ulster in the league this season in reaching the play-offs once more and winning the British Irish Cup.

This is not a bad achievement in the overall scheme of things, it’s just not where Munster are used to being. Unfortunately, unlike football, there isn’t that much silverware handed around come May in rugby. But, like football, only one team in Europe can win the equivalent of the Champions League and like football no team has a divine right to win it, not Barcelona, not Munster, nor anyone else. Unlike Barcelona, or Real Madrid or Chelsea for that matter, Munster don’t have an open chequebook, while there are also IRFU- imposed restrictions on who they can buy.

For sure, Munster’s golden years were founded upon a golden generation of home-grown players. But would they have won the Heineken Cup in 2006 or 2008 without first Trevor Halstead and then Rua Tipoki?

With Wallace and Leamy mostly hors de combat this season, there’s a need for an overseas’ backrower too, but since Halstead and Tipoki, although two very different players, they’ve lacked that focal point in the backline, à la O’Driscoll for Leinster.

It remains to be seen what James Downey and Casey Laulala can bring to the mix but think back to 2009, and even leaving aside Felipe Contepomi, Chris Whitaker et al, would Leinster have reached the European summit without one inspirational campaign from Rocky Elsom who, bedevilled by injury, has never looked the same player since?

Similarly, it’s hard to imagine Ulster being in next Saturday’s final without their recruitment of World Cup winners, and particularly Ruan Pienaar.

Being third in Ireland’s Euro pecking order rankles, not least with a Red Army that was used to their team being not just the best in Ireland, but in Europe too; and thousands enlisted on the back of those triumphs.

Nor does it help when your neighbours have not only usurped you as the best team in Ireland but the best team in Europe as well.

And next Saturday Leinster, having been given a leg up by Munster, could become possibly the best ever to date! Next Saturday will indeed be difficult for any Munster man or woman to watch, but then again they can reflect that those derby defeats last month were to the two Heineken Cup finalists.

To a degree, Munster are victims of their own success. But among others, Graham Henry and Brad Thorn have pointed to the widespread expectation on the All Blacks to win every game they play.

It’s a burden, but a rich heritage can be a strength too, with a little time and patience.