McMillan and Munster back to drawing board after U-turn with Randle

THIS SAD EPISODE has been damaging for Munster, and not just in the sense that they need to find another attack coach.

Roger Randle will not be joining the province, despite having signed a two-year deal to do so, and the move being officially announced just over two weeks ago.

The deal won’t go ahead after Munster said they came to a “mutual agreement” with Randle.

He instead looks likely to continue his career in his native New Zealand, where the rape accusation against him from 1997 has not been a big issue during his coaching career in the decades since. Randle has always denied the allegation.

There is a completely different landscape in Irish rugby, however, and it was always likely that this issue would come up here. It’s unclear whether Munster thought it might not, or whether they were just confident that it could be dealt with when it did.

But the U-turn on Randle’s appointment shows how serious this has been. Initially, it looked as if Munster hoped to plough on with it, but confirmation of the decision not to landed last night, although the statement gave Randle a chance to maintain his “complete and unwavering innocence”.

Randle is, by all accounts, a fine rugby coach whose reputation on the attack front has continued to grow thanks to his work with the Chiefs in recent years. He is also regarded as an ‘energiser’ within that squad, someone who brings a good atmosphere to the camp daily.

Munster must now go back on the search for a new attack coach with similar attributes, but it remains to be seen if there will be further fallout within the province’s hierarchy in the coming months.

Not only have they lost current attack specialist Mike Prendergast, who is set to join Bath this summer, but Munster are now into May without a successor for him. This is a late stage of the season to be going into the market, although head coach Clayton McMillan said that there was widespread interest in the job before they opted for Randle.

For those looking on from the outside, the truth is that Munster seems like a troubled place right now.

The province recently offered voluntary redundancies to staff amid its financial challenges, which caused surprise and obvious concern across Irish rugby and further afield.

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Despite not being Champions Cup contenders in recent years, Munster are still seen as a big club around the world. Being able to attract someone as highly-regarded as Clayton McMillan from New Zealand as head coach last year was another sign of that.

But this recent run of dispiriting events – which includes Munster getting knocked out of the Champions Cup at the pool stage, as well as forwards coach Alex Codling moving on at the end of this season to join Toulon – gives the impression of an organisation that is in choppy waters.

McMillan and his players have grabbed 10 match points from their last two games in the URC to steady the ship in rugby terms, and they could still win that competition, but their pursuit of success is surely being challenged by the off-field distractions.

McMillan pushed hard for Randle to be appointed this summer. He trusts his long-time ally from New Zealand on a deep level and offered Randle his “unequivocal” support amid the concerns about Munster signing the attack coach.

McMillan turning to someone he knows so well was not a surprise. Randle was the obvious favourite from the moment it was confirmed that current Munster senior coach Prendergast, who has been in charge of the attack, is leaving this summer.

But that favouritism seemed less obvious when the rape allegation from 1997, which Randle has always denied, came to light.

McMillan, who is a former police officer, backed Randle as the kind of coach he needed to help him improve Munster as a rugby team. He also backed him strongly as a character and, in McMillan’s words, “a family man.”

Munster Rugby said they undertook “due diligence” in assessing whether Randle was the right man for the job. It’s understood that this process involved speaking to people in New Zealand who know Randle and may have an understanding of the incident in 1997.

Two of the key decision-makers in Munster, CEO Ian Flanagan and general manager Ian Costello, drive this type of signing forward, but the result of the process that followed was a cluster of resignations from positions on Munster Rugby boards.

First, three former Munster players stepped down from the province’s Professional Game Committee, which McMillan, Flanagan, and Costello are also part of in a non-voting capacity.

By the end of the week of Randle’s appointment being announced, there had been resignations from Munster’s Commercial Advisory Group, which is an informal, voluntary group of business people who give the province advice on the commercial front.

As well as those resignations from voluntary positions, the Randle appointment caused mixed feelings within Munster’s staff ranks. Some naturally wondered why Munster would bring this upon themselves in the first place.

The IRFU, meanwhile, distanced themselves from the signing, saying that Munster and the other provinces are responsible for assistant coach appointments, whereas the IRFU directly contract the provincial head coaches. As such, the IRFU said Munster hadn’t needed union approval to sign Randle.

And yet it’s understood that the signing did cause some consternation within the IRFU, who are believed to have been involved in a decision to reach a mutual agreement with Randle.

Meanwhile, over in New Zealand, Randle is thought to have been blindsided by the scale of the reaction to his appointment in Munster. He hasn’t had to deal with fallout from the 1997 episode in recent decades.

So, whatever one’s views are about whether Randle should be coming to Ireland or not, everyone can agree that this has been a very messy situation.

And now, the deal is off.

A penny for McMillan’s thoughts. He may not have seen the big reaction to signing Randle coming. He was convinced that it was the right appointment. He asked Munster’s supporters to trust his judgment on this matter.

Less than a year into his time as Munster head coach, McMillan might be wondering where this project is heading. He goes back to the drawing board and will surely be frustrated that the man he wanted as his right-hand man is no longer coming.

This is likely to be an uncomfortable time for Flanagan and Costello, given that the IRFU are thought to be frustrated with the episode.

While captain Tadhg Beirne was in the deeply awkward position of having to answer questions about Randle last week, no one from within Munster’s hierarchy has had to do that yet. McMillan firmly backed Randle twice in the last two weeks.

It remains to be seen if there is further fallout in Munster on the back of this controversy.

Randle is not joining. Munster must surely feel now that the damaging discussion around them could have been avoided.