Munster’s new head coach Graham Rowntree was under no illusions as to how big the task would be following a poor start to their United Rugby Championship campaign.
The Limerick-based outfit went down 20-11 to fellow Irish province Connacht on Friday, leaving them down in 12th place in the table.
They have lost three of their four matches, with Munster’s only victory coming via an unconvincing 21-5 success over traditional strugglers Zebre Parma.
Rowntree took over from Johann van Graan, who decided to join English Premiership club Bath ahead of the current campaign, but he has struggled to ignite the Munstermen.
Pressure continues to increase on the 51-year-old, but the former England and British & Irish Lions coach is not panicking.
Finding solutions
“No, it’s tough. That’s coaching. It’s fixing things, finding solutions, moving forward; fixing them, working to the next game,” he told reporters.
“I’ve been around long enough. Obviously it’s a different context being the head coach but I knew it wasn’t going to be easy.”
Rowntree has seen “improvements” but admits that the alterations they have put in place will take time to bear fruit.
“We’ve changed how we’re doing things. We’ve not reinvented the wheel but we’ve changed things and I can see the changes, the improvements coming through,” he said.
“But we just have to eradicate errors, eradicate penalties, improve our discipline.
“It’s my job to do that, and the coaches, and to manage those young coaches, it’s my job. We’ll keep doing that, that’s all we can physically do, day in, day out.
“Expectations, I don’t know, I’ve had none put on me as such. I want to win the next game. I want to improve every week, I want to win the next game, that’s what I’ll keep driving.”
Clash with the Bulls next up
Munster will look to bounce back from that disappointing URC defeat to Connacht when they take on the Bulls at Thomond Park on Saturday.
The Pretoria-based outfit were the losing finalists last season and will present another stern challenge this weekend.
“We are spoiled as players and coaches to have such great support as we do with the Munster fans. I’m sure they’ll be right behind us at Thomond which is now a huge game,” Rowntree added.
“It’s always going to be a huge game, particularly against the Bulls. We know what’s coming from the Bulls so we drive on.
“We’ll look at this game, fix things, drive training, see what selection brings. We’ve got some guys coming back from South Africa and we’ll look forward to the next game after Monday.”
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