Oct 30,2024
There is no BKT United Rugby Championship this weekend, but any feeling that this would be a quiet few days in Irish rugby was firmly ended at 10.30am yesterday morning.
Munster's first team weren’t training on Tuesday, having just returned from a gruelling trip to South Africa, and shortly before 10am they were summoned to an online call where they were informed that the province had parted company with head coach Graham Rowntree.
Within 30 minutes the news was confirmed publicly, as they announced Rowntree would leave with immediate effect "by mutual agreement". It’s just 13 months since he signed a contract extension until 2026.
As breaking news goes, it was a bombshell.
While Munster have had a poor start to the season, with just two wins from their opening six games, their form didn't point to such a drastic change so early in the campaign.
In the Englishman’s two previous seasons in charge, slow starts were the norm. Having rallied to win the URC in 2023 and finishing top of the regular season table in 2024, it appeared that there was enough credit in the bank for Rowntree and his coaching team to weather the storm.
The former Leicester Tigers prop was immensely popular with Munster supporters, and not just for delivering their first silverware since 2011 when they won the URC in May 2023 (below).
Having joined as forwards coach just after the 2019 Rugby World Cup, his appointment as Johann van Graan’s replacement in 2022 was well-received, even as he stepped into his first head coaching role, supported by a backroom team of former Munster players Mike Prendergast, Denis Leamy and Andi Kyriacou.
As a personality, there was always a sense that he "got" what it meant to be a part of Munster, and that was evident from the response of Munster supporters to Tuesday’s news. Scrolling through the hundreds of responses to Munster’s announcement on X, it was hard to find many who saw this as a good development.
Their performances could run hot and cold, but there was an identity to the way Munster played under Rowntree. For better or worse, they tried to play the game on their terms, at a high pace and with lots of quick handling. That was a contrast to their previous term under Van Graan, whose gameplan was often tailored to the opposition week on week.
How then, less than 18 months after a title homecoming under beautiful sunshine at Thomond Park, are the province now back on the hunt for a new coach, their fourth new hire since 2016.
While Rowntree appeared to be hugely popular among the players during his time as an assistant, there have been consistent rumours for more than a year that some of those relationships had become strained.
Indeed, at the start of this season, Rowntree categorically denied that he and his former skipper Peter O’Mahony had fallen out, which stemmed from O’Mahony’s decision to hand over the captaincy this time last year, as well as his prolonged contract negotiations.
As well as struggling for form at the start of each season, the province have also had to deal with a huge injury list in each campaign which prompted suggestions that their training and player management was a contributing factor. For the record, Rowntree defended their conditioning in recent weeks.
On the pitch there have been obvious issues this season; a lineout that has gone from being inconsistent to downright poor, and a defence that has looked soft around the edges, giving up a try-scoring bonus-point in five of the six games to date.
The only element of the uncoupling that makes sense is the timing. While Munster welcome an All Blacks XV to Limerick on Saturday, their next competitive outing is still more than four weeks away, giving them time let the dust settle before the URC returns, and the Champions Cup gets under way in December.
The divorce was, officially at least, "by mutual agreement", but there has been no indication as to who initiated those proceedings.
If this was closer to a sacking than a resignation, then it’s hard to believe it was purely a results-driven decision.
The last two seasons have shown the province are well-capable of a swift climb up the table, while they are also on the far side of their tour to South Africa. In line with that, three of their four defeats have been away to Leinster, Stormers and Sharks, with the shock loss at Zebre being the only result that jumps off the page.
In five years dealing with Rowntree, and two of those years being as a head coach, the former England prop has always come across as a straight talker with unbending principles, and it’s not beyond the realms of possibility that he offered up his position if he believed he no longer had the support of the dressingroom.
It’s been an unfitting end for Rowntree, but that won't tarnish his legacy at the province.
As well as being the man who ended their long wait for silverware, his willingness to play younger, homegrown players like Edwin Edogbo (below), Brian Gleeson, Ruadhan Quinn and Ben O’Connor on a regular basis endeared him to supporters.
Some slightly older players have flourished in these two seasons. The careers of Shane Daly and Calvin Nash have been revived in two seasons under Rowntree, while they have established a long-term half-back partnership in Jack Crowley and Craig Casey.
It’s also worth pointing out how the province have had to work through tragedy in these last two seasons, with the sudden deaths of Tom Tierney and Greig Oliver, both of whom were involved in the province’s academy.
Whatever happened in recent days and weeks, Munster supporters deserve answers for how it has come to this.
Many supporters have vented their frustrations towards the IRFU, but serious questions have to be put to the top of Munster Rugby, and specifically chief executive Ian Flanagan (below), for why and how the reigning URC Coach of the Year is gone just six games into the new season.
If this was a decision by the professional game board, then some transparency has to be given to the supporters, more than 25,000 of whom will be going to Thomond Park this Saturday for a highly anticipated game against an All Blacks XV. If this decision was made on a whim, with no long-term successor lined up, it seems an enormous gamble.
Equally, if Rowntree left of his own accord, the province’s fans deserve an explanation from the CEO as to how the relationship ended so abruptly.
The reality is that we’re unlikely to get those answers on the record. With non-disclosure agreements now a regular part of the process in a sudden coaching change, those running the game in Munster will be able to avoid providing those uncomfortable answers.
