Munster go into the new season with Clayton Mc Millan taking over as head coach after he took over from Ian Costello who had taken the reins from Graham Rowntree in October of 2024.
With this fresh start bringing fresh hope that Munster will get close to winning a League title last won in 2023. They are certainly capable of going for a league title but will need to be far more consistent than last year if they are to wrestle the trophy away from Leinster.
Munster will be away to Scarlets in week 1 of the campaign and that will be followed by 3 games of the next 4 on home soil the only away fixture will be in Croke Park against Leinster.
Given they could have had a tour away in South Africa to begin the year, looking at the games over the opening rounds they are very manageable and Mr Mc Millan will hope his charges can hit the ground running.
Europe could be that much trickier given the lack of strength in depth Munster have, yes they will have everyone back from injury both long term absentees and short term also.
The return of Roman Salanoa from injury will be a massive boost, he along with Ronan Fox will provide competition for Oli Jager who himself will hope for a good run without injury in the early part of the new campaign, not forgetting Lee Barron and Michael Milne who joined from Leinster both on 2 year deals.
Dan Kelly has joined on a 2 year deal from Leicester Tigers and will provide welcome competition for the pairing of Tom Farrell and Alex Nankivell who were the chosen centres in the big games last season when injury or suspension didn’t rule Nankivell out.
JJ Hanrahan has re-joined for third spell in red and his experience will take the pressure off Jack Crowley and will hopefully help the two other 10s currently in the set up Dylan Hicks and Tony Butler to advance and put pressure of the senior pair for a place in the match day 23 as the season goes ahead.
Up front, men like Evan O Connell and Tom Ahern will want to establish themselves on a weekly basis as will Brian Gleeson while young tyros like Luke Murphy and Ruan Quinn will want to continue the good work of recent years. Michael Foy will want to push on after some good showings in green in the recent Junior World Cup.
The coaching team will hope that with this new start that they can move ahead and maybe tweak things both in defence under Denis Leamy and in attack under Mike Predergast. Munster will want to be water tight in defence while trying new things in attack.
When things went well in attack last year they were great, La Rochelle away springs to mind straight off but then early in the year against Leinster in Croker. They failed to fire even after a bright start. So consistency will be the name of the game for Munster in the new campaign.
The new season will start on Friday week away to Gloucester who they will also face in the Champions Cup before playing Bath in Cork the following week, who are to face Munster in Europe later in the year.
They were due to play Biarritz in France during pre-season but that game fell through unfortunately. Another link to Munster’s first win in Europe which will be marked this season as it will be 20 years in May 2026 since the famous 23-19 win over Biarritz in Cardiff….