r/MunsterRugby

Meaning: someone who will either break through or surprise everyone. So not Jack Crowley having another great season.

I’ll go first: hard choice and always a gamble but I’ll go Conor Ryan and Charlie O’Shea.

Ryan looks amazing in size and with Kleyn gone and Beirne with lesser minutes he might step up as an enforcer type of player. Was name-checked by Kleyn himself of the Access Munster podcast Tom Savage hosts.

O’Shea really impressed with the U20’s and with the addition of Harrison it seems Munster want to move to a double playmaker with a more ‘liquid’ fullback to run things. O’Shea has pace and technique aplenty to add!

Others I considered: Max Clein and Eoghan Smyth

A pretty disappointing tournament for the team overall, but you have to say there looks to be a very strong class coming through the ranks. Interested to hear everyone’s thoughts on the group.

Alex Moloney (Presentation Brothers College) – One of the best underage centres we’ve produced in a long time . Serious prospect and looks to have a massive future ahead of him.

Xabi Scanlan (Castletroy College) – Great build and gets through a huge amount of work. I’d imagine he’ll continue climbing the ranks.

Rian Macfarlane O’Shea (Presentation Brothers College) – There’s just something about Rian. Hard to put my finger on exactly what it is, but I have really high hopes for the lad and think there’s a lot more to come from him.

David Nolan (Presentation Brothers College) – Solid campaign overall and definitely showed some promise.

Ryan McCormack (Ardscoil Rís) – Another solid campaign!

Any names to keep an eye out for with the U18 Schools team?

Any feedback on what he's adding to the attack? It'll be interesting to see how he goes. He was a smart player and the Scarlets is a good place to go to learn attacking rugby.

Mike Prendergast was good for Munster but I'm glad there's a change now with a different style. Sometimes change for change sake is good. Munster were too lateral and possession rugby isn't great most of the year.

Just seen a clip of the team training at thurles and looks to be Oli in the background holding a camera on the far side of a maul.

Is he sticking around to do some coaching? He had to pickup the front row skills much later in his career which to me could translate across as a decent scrum coach potentially.

Thoughts?

I’ve seen it the last few years that some of the academy players are made to wear old training kit during the start of preseason.

Is it tradition or is it to distinguish them from senior players?

Any ideas?