Who would’ve thought it would get to this? Just a few months ago, Munster were the talk of the town after dismantling Leinster at Croke Park in what was meant to be the start of a new era for the Red Army.

Now six or so months on, they are out of Europe, after already falling out of the Champions Cup in the pool stages and are now looking at 10 losses in their last 14 games.

Their latest loss, a 31-21 defeat to Exeter Chiefs at Sandy Park in the Challenge Cup, was arguably their roughest yet. It was a blustery day in Devon as Munster arguably had their worst first-half ever in recent times.

Munster shot themselves in the foot twice, giving up two intercept tries, and all in all, Exeter scored their four first-half tries with only a handful of phases in attack as they went into the break with the match won at 31-0.

And Jack Crowley may have single-handedly dragged Munster into an attempted comeback, but Munster looks listless, out of any ideas outside of ‘give to Jack’, and it’s the culmination of a truly bleak week, which saw the confirmation of up to 100 redundancies at the club.

This season was always going to be tough, with Peter O’Mahony, Conor Murray, and Stephen Archer all retiring, but they were all over 35, and Munster relied on them way too much game-to-game. Without Archer, who was an amazing stalwart in his day, was never a world beater, Munster would’ve been in danger of missing the Champions Cup as front row options were depleted to a bare minimum.

However, with the slew of retirements, there should have been openings for young players to really shine, but no one has really come through this season.

For the past few seasons, Munster have had the bulk of the best players in the underage teams. From Brian Gleeson and Ruadhan Quinn in 2023, to Evan O’Connell, Ben O’Connor and Sean Edogbo in 2024, to Michael Foy in 2025 and while several of them are getting minutes, it feels like they aren’t developing at the rate youngsters do abroad.

Just take a simple example of England’s Henry Pollock, one of the hottest prospects in rugby on the pitch and one of the most marketable names off it, having just signed with Eddie Hearn and Matchroom as he looks to become a global star.

Pollock was starting Premiership matches by the time he was 19, entrusted with the responsibility to start and 8 in just his fourth Premiership appearance, having shone for the England U20s side that won the World Championships that year.

Meanwhile, someone like Brian Gleeson, who was a star in his own right for the Ireland U20s at the same time as Pollock, hasn’t been given the keys at Thomond Park.

Gleeson only has 8 starts for Munster across his whole career, Pollock has that many this season for Northampton, on top of starting in the Six Nations, while Gleeson hasn’t had a sniff of International rugby, and hasn’t deserved to have yet.

The likes of Gavin Coombes, Jack O’Donoghue, and John Ryan have been great for the club. Munster isn’t going anywhere with them, and with the limited number of imports, Clayton McMillan needs to trust the kids.

Alan Hansen famously said, ‘you can’t win anything with kids’ about Manchester United in 1995, and we all know how that ended.

They don’t even need to look far for a similar rebuild. Richie Murphy came to Ulster mid-season after a chaotic final spell under Dan McFarland, where Ulster promised so much and gave so little.

Murphy knew straight away it wasn’t going to be a quick fix, and Ulster had a mass exodus, losing key squad players like Will Addison and Billy Burns, and they suffered. Ulster missed out on Champions Cup rugby for the first time last season, and it looked like this campaign was going to be the same after losing club legend John Cooney as well as Keiron Treadwell.

But, heading into the final block of the season, Ulster have had one of their most enjoyable seasons in a long time.

Still up at the top end in 3rd place in the URC, with Mark Sexton now as attack coach, Ulster have one of the most exciting attacks in Europe, and their players have thrived.

Stuart McCloskey went from valiant pro to a contender for player of the Six Nations, Rob Baloucoune was the breakout player of the tournament, and if there was a best impact sub prize, then Nick Timoney would have to be one of the frontrunners.

And who knows, maybe Clayton McMillan’s plan the whole time was to bleed in youngsters in his second season, but after saying last summer that he is looking to raise the side’s floor, and now Munster’s floor is the lowest it’s been this century.

With one of the best school teams in a generation in this year’s Presentation Cork, the groundwork needs to be laid now so they can come through.

A lot of people in Munster give out about the advantages that Leinster have with the Dublin private schools, but they too have the potential of a similar conveyor belt if it were run properly.

The Edogbo brothers, who are the few young bright sparks for Munster this season, were never picked up by Munster academy coaches themselves, needing to get in at UCC before getting the call from Limerick. That has nothing to do with private schools; that’s to do with competency.

Players of that ilk would never get lost in the shuffle in Leinster, or anywhere for that matter, but Munster nearly missed out. With many Community Officers to be made redundant, who will be there to spot the next Edogbos?

There are a lot of issues at Munster, but as has always been the case, it’s so easily fixable, with the models at other sides to copy; it just takes that first step to admit they’re doing it wrong.