When the Munster team bus arrives at Páirc Uí Chaoimh on Thursday evening for their historic clash with a South Africa XV, it will be the first time head coach Graham Rowntree has been inside a major GAA ground since he moved to live here three years ago. But the significance of the occasion, the first ever rugby game at the home of Cork GAA, has not been lost on him, and he’s also aware of the proud tradition Munster have against touring international sides.
Midweek has almost become a thing of the past in the professional era and Rowntree laments its loss, not just for the sense of occasion but also in the reduced training load.
“I used to love in my time at Leicester, it meant you didn’t have to train as much in the week,” he said. “Nowadays, the nature of the game, you can’t play two games a week, you just can’t. There’s only Lions tours where you do it now, really. That’s why they take a big squad.
“It’s something different. A different feel to the week. I’m sure when we get down there the excitement will be through the roof, different atmosphere, different stadium, you know, how good for these young men, predominantly young men, how good. I’m proper jealous of it, to be honest with you, playing such a game.”
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He arrived to live in Limerick just as the county was starting to embrace its most glorious hurling era and while he greatly admires what he sees in the GAA, he just hasn’t had the time yet to see it first hand.
“I have not been inside Páirc Uí Chaoimh. I’ve not been to a GAA match, desperate too, just not had time to do it yet. I’m very aware of how successful Limerick are.”
He is also fully aware of the significance of the venue for this match, with the 41,400 tickets selling quickly when they became available. “Been waiting for it for a long time. You can see by how quickly it was sold out. I’ve said before, we’re spoiled with our fans, our support base, how quickly they sold that out and grabbed those tickets. It shows how important it is to this province.
“We won’t train there until we actually play there. I want it to be a special moment. The lads are going to feel it right from the warm-up. Obviously our kickers will go earlier and do their kicking, the change of lights and there’s obviously a different feel, dimension to it.
“The rest of the guys, they’ll see it in the warm-up, unless they’ve been there before watching GAA, but I’m pretty sure they’ve not been in the middle of a rugby pitch in that stadium. It’s obviously going to be the same size rugby pitch, just a different feel, the hoardings around it, and the lighting, the lighting is different for the kickers.”
This will be an unusual game for Munster against a touring side. Only the Irish internationals might have faced such opposition previously but the arrival of the four big South African franchises in the URC, along with the side selected, means that nearly all of the South Africa XV will be familiar opponents to the Munster players.
“Yeah, look how well they did last year, the South African teams proved a lot of people wrong,” added Rowntree, who confirmed that Jack Crowley was being kept in Irish this week but that all the other Munster players who faced the All Blacks selection on Friday night had been made available. “We had some real ding-dongs, we’re about to have one now. The Stormers pushed us early on, went three tries up against us in Thomond Park. And the Sharks. We went over to Pretoria and Johannesburg, they were hard games.
“I’ve got nothing but respect for the South African provinces, always have done as a player and a coach. I played against them a lot when I was a player. But it’s an all-star URC team, some familiar faces in there and we know what we’ve got to deal with.”
