Jack Crowley knows Munster must target better Champions Cup start

Crowley will have bounced back into Munster’s High Performance Centre on Monday as preparations began for this Saturday’s visit to Thomond Park of Parisian giants Stade Francais after an excellent cameo off the bench alongside provincial half-back partner Craig Casey when the pair helped Ireland over the line in the final quarter to defeat Joe Schmidt’s Wallabies 22-19.

Having left behind a province still under the charge of Graham Rowntree, Crowley, Casey, club captain Tadhg Beirne, Conor Murray, Calvin Nash and Peter O’Mahony returned to be greeted by an interim head coach Ian Costello, who brought the sextet up to speed with the various tweaks he and the assistant coaches had made in the wake of Rowntree’s shock departure by mutual consent on October 29.

Crowley liked what he heard at that reintegration meeting and speaking to celebrate sponsors Pinergy’s 10-year partnership with Munster, and the signing of a four-year extension of that relationship on Wednesday he said: “It’s been brilliant. Like Cossie said we all met on Monday morning and we jumped straight back into it.

“There was a certain air of excitement about having Europe this week, I guess it’s something special to jump straight back into, the first time in a while we have gone from this into Europe.

“So I guess having that element of it is always really interesting because you want to transition quickly between environments and the quicker you can do the smoother it is for both teams. Yeah, we had a meeting Monday morning to get back up to speed, all the good work the lads have being doing over the last few weeks. There is a real air of excitement amongst this group to play our first European game and set our stall out early in terms about how we want to go in this competition. Yeah, it’s exciting."

Maintaining Test rugby standards when returning to clubs and provinces has always been the requirement made of international players and Crowley agreed it was beneficial to be jumping straight into a Champions Cup week.

“Actually it helps, definitely. You stay on that level of excitement and test yourself against the best and obviously playing against a French club or playing against an English club will be quite like playing an international.

“There’s a nice element to it in terms of a team you haven’t faced as a group and there’s that kind of excitement of the unknown and what could happen.” 

There is a sense within Munster that there is need to make a better fist of this season’s pool stage than last year, when they opened with a home draw against competition debutants Bayonne and managed just one victory, at Toulon, in the campaign. It was enough to see them scrape through to the knockout phase but meant they had to go on the road to face old foes Northampton Saints, who beat them at Thomond Park in January, for a Round of 16 tie that led to their exit.

“Yeah, look we’d obviously prefer to do better than we did last season absolutely and we want to start better,” Crowley said.

“I guess there’s an element of seeing how the weekend goes. We don’t know exactly we could be facing as the first time as a group playing against Stade and yeah, we obviously want to start of this competition with a good start but we’ll take these two games and then hopefully back into the URC and start building from there as a group. We obviously have higher ambitions than last season and hopefully we can start that well on Saturday.” 

Crowley, 24, seems certain to start against Stade Francais this Saturday, something that was not the case after a disappointing start to November with Ireland that led to a clamour from outside the camp to hand the number 10 jersey to fly-half rival Sam Prendergast. The 21-year-old Leinster rookie, who replaced Crowley off the bench for a debut against Argentina, started against both Fiji and Australia as debate raged as to Farrell’s best option, Ciaran Frawley being the other 10 in the squad.

Crowley was credited by the Ireland head coach for being a team player through it all, despite losing his starting place and the Munster playmaker welcomed the competition as being good for all three fly-halves.

“We meet three or four times in the week, we look at video together, because ultimately, if we’re all on the same hymn sheet the team benefits most when we step in.

“I guess on top of that then the competition is something that will ultimately push us to be our best between myself, Ciaran and Sam or whoever else it may be; that the three of us will get the best out of each other and that’s something that is really positive and we certainly look at it in a positive light as well.”