{"id":159792,"date":"2025-11-03T03:38:15","date_gmt":"2025-11-03T03:38:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/159792\/"},"modified":"2025-11-03T03:38:15","modified_gmt":"2025-11-03T03:38:15","slug":"clayton-mcmillan-believes-win-over-argentina-xv-will-help-grow-munster-depth-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/159792\/","title":{"rendered":"Clayton McMillan believes win over Argentina XV will help grow Munster depth \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Munster<\/a> head coach Clayton McMillan<\/a> said their 31-28 win over Argentina XV at Thomond Park on Saturday night was a worthwhile exercise which has helped them increase their depth chart.<\/p>\n

Munster led 10-7 at the break in front of a crowd of just over 15,000, with Evan O\u2019Connell getting them off the mark before Tony Butler got the first of his two tries against an Argentina selection with three full internationals on board.<\/p>\n

Gavin Coombes extended the lead after the restart before Butler got his second while scrumhalf Paddy Patterson was in the bin. And while the visitors kept responding, Se\u00e1n O\u2019Brien sealed the win with Munster\u2019s fifth try.<\/p>\n

\u201cLook 12 months ago I was in the other changing room [with a New Zealand XV] and got a sense then for what rugby meant to people at Munster and also just how much they value playing international sides,\u201d said McMillan.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is a little bit of a luxury and one that we don\u2019t take for granted and it was fantastic to see a really good crowd turn up with a lot of other rugby on TV and things going on at the moment. I guess that is a reflection of how much playing these sort of games means to the people of Munster. Mike Haley got a little bit of a rolled ankle but we came out injury-free so even better.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"ConorConor Ryan, Max Clein and Luke Murphy after earning their first Munster caps against an Argentina XV at Thomond Park. Photograph: Laszlo Geczo\/Inpho <\/p>\n

Lock Conor Ryan made his bow while hooker Max Clein and backrower Luke Murphy came off the bench to make their Munster debuts on an evening when outside centre Fionn Gibbons and tighthead Ronan Foxe made their first starts for the province after a handful of appearances off the bench. The scores from O\u2019Connell and Butler were their first tries for Munster.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been really impressed with the effort that everybody in the squad has put in, and a lot of the younger guys have done a huge amount to help set up the guys that play regularly to go out on a Saturday and perform. You just can\u2019t deny them the opportunity to go out and play,\u201d added McMillan.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s taken sort of five or six weeks to get there, but it was really pleasing, satisfying to give them that opportunity and see them go out there and enjoy themselves, express themselves and get a win.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s important for the club, it\u2019s important for our growth and creating depth, so there were so many positives I think that came out of tonight.\u201d <\/p>\n

McMillan, who has guided Munster to victory in all five URC<\/a> games this season and whose next clash will be at home to the Stormers on November 29th, was pleased with the way his understrength side dealt with the physicality of the Argentina selection.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were probably a little bit guilty at times of playing festival rugby and looking to score off every position but when we respected the ball and a bit of territory we played some really good rugby,\u201d added McMillan. \u201cAnd a real pleasing part was that a number of other guys got exposed and a number of guys played their first game for Munster, so that\u2019s all really pleasing.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Munster head coach Clayton McMillan said their 31-28 win over Argentina XV at Thomond Park on Saturday night…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":159793,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76],"tags":[18,19,17,12311,132],"class_list":{"0":"post-159792","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-eire","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-munster-rugby","12":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115483686075635110","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159792","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=159792"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159792\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/159793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=159792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=159792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=159792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}