Clayton McMillan on Jack Crowley's return and Munster's pre-season

MUNSTER RUGBY will contest their one and only pre-season home tie on Friday night at Virgin Media Park when they take on Leicester Tigers. (7.15pm)

The Red Army will be looking to build and improve on what was ultimately a poor season for the province last season.

Munster’s URC season came to an abrupt end last season following a 45-14 quarter-final defeat to Bulls in Pretoria.

New Zealander McMillan says he has enjoyed Munster’s pre-season preparations.

“I’ve enjoyed it. The weather has been kind to us which is always helpful in the pre-season window but it’s been good.

“We’ve done a lot similarly to last year but also quite a bit different with new coaches in, some new material, a bit of a feeling out process in terms of rhythm and understanding how each other work and I’ve been really encouraged by the way that that’s gone.”

Ahead of the new season, McMillan admits he’d like his side to be a more ‘multi-dimensional’ moving forward.

“My feeling is that we need to be a more multi-dimensional team. We have to gave the ability to play the game in multiple ways that suits our profile. We won’t be the finished product in Round 1 but I think we have a really clear identity and we’ve worked really hard in the off-season on making sure that our players understand what that looks like.

“The game against La Rochelle probably came a week or two early for us in our preparation but a lot of the stuff that we worked on in the four weeks prior, we saw some really good evidence of that but we also have lots to tidy up on.”

The former Coca-Cola Red Sparks player stated that he should have more players to choose from as the season approaches, with Munster dealing with some significant injuries of late.

“We should have more numbers on deck but equally we could pick up some injuries this week. There are a few bodies out and a lot of the bodies that are out have been out for the majority of pre-season off the back of some serious injuries towards the end of last season.

“Guys like Tom Farrell, Jack Crowley, Edwin Edogbo, guys that had surgery but most of them recovering very well and I think we will see them in the first month of rugby, no doubt about it.”

With Jack Crowley set to miss a large portion of the 2026/27 season, McMillan says that it presents an opportunity for some of the younger out-halves in the squad to step up to the mantle. The Munster Head Coach was impressed with youngster Tom Wood against La Rochelle recently.

“I thought he (Tom Wood) was brilliant against La Rochelle for the time he got on the field. He had a few kicks that he probably wishes he could take back but from last year we could see the talent in him. He’s such a relaxed character, he doesn’t get flustered by much.

“Hopefully we get good news on him on the injury front but it’s definitely our intention to have him play a lot of games, especially with the unknown status surrounding Jack’s return to play.”

On Jack Crowley, the Rotorua native is hopeful that the January timeline for a return will prove accurate but admits the province won’t be rushing the Corkman back.

“We’re hopeful that it will be in that post-Christmas window and that represents a great opportunity for our young guys to have a crack.

“Jack’s in really good spirits. To look at him physically you wouldn’t notice anything different about him.

“He looks after himself but the nature of his injury, I think it’s kind of a narrowing of a blood vessel that he needs to make sure, while he’s in this recovery state, not to over-exert himself until it opens up and gets a better blood flow.

“Being the diligent man that he is, he’s not doing a hell of a lot other than keeping himself in good nick.

“It’s the running he’s probably trying to avoid the most but every scan he’s done has shown improvement and so we have to trust in the professionals that their advice will ultimately lead to him being back on the field within the time frame that we’ve already signposted.

“If it needs to be longer, it’ll be longer. We’re talking about a guy’s health and well-being which is far more important than trying to rush him out onto a rugby field. I believe that we’ve got some bloody good 10’s in the building.

“I thought JJ stood up towards the back end of last season and I’m really encouraged by the two young guys we have in Charlie O’Shea and Tom Wood, Charlie will start the game this weekend.”

McMillan, who took over as Head Coach at Munster in July of last year, says he feels ‘no shame’ in admitting that he enters this season expecting Munster to compete for the URC title.

“There’s no shame in saying that we enter every season with the expectation that we want to win the title. If we play anywhere near our potential consistently, we will at least put ourselves in the picture to contest finals.

“I look back on last year and the amount of soft points that we gave up late in games where we either gifted the opposition a bonus point or we lost a games where we were in strong positions to score a try late to secure a bonus point.

“Those games may seem insignificant in November, December or January, they matter a lot when everyone is scraping for points towards the end of the season. We want to target a home quarter-final and then from there, to be good on the day,” he concluded.