Prendergast Relishing Thomond Return With Grenoble

5th August 2015 By Munster Rugby

On Friday August 14th Munster open their pre-season campaign against French Top 14 side Grenoble, a fixture that will see the return of former Munster scrum-half and current Grenoble Backs Coach, Mike Prendergast, to Thomond Park.

Not for the first time will the Limerick native – who was capped 48 times for Munster – come to Thomond Park in the ranks of a French team. Before commencing his career as a coach, Prendergast took to the field as a visiting player with Bourgoin in the 2006/07 Heineken Cup. Although next week’s game does not represent the same pressure of top flight European competition, Prendergast is keen to stress the importance and value of such pre-season encounters.

“Obviously last time playing for Bourgoin was a much bigger occasion, it was the Heineken Cup as opposed to a pre-season friendly, but still nothing changes, we’ll take it very seriously and we know the big challenge that we’ll face in Limerick. The game comes the week before we return to Top 14 action against Agen so that will make for a hugely competitive game hopefully. After Agen we face Clermont before going up against a few of the ex-Munster lads in Pau.

“A lot of our pre-season focus so far has been on weights, conditioning and fundamentals, but the closer we get to the Connacht (August 7^th) and Munster games, we’ll start introducing more plays and patterns, and then try to implement them in the pre-season games.

“These trips are massively important for us, we went to Argentina last year, and with new players coming into the squad it gives us time to bring the squad together and promote team bonding.”

Following two seasons with Bourgoin, Prendergast returned to Munster in 2008/09 and made his final appearance for the province that May against Ospreys, a game that also marked the final appearance of Munster’s all-time leading try scorer, Anthony Horgan.

Upon completion of his playing career with the province, and in his first season as player/coach with Young Munster, the scrum half guided the AIL side to Division 1A promotion. In total, prior to his move to Grenoble, Prendergast spent four years coaching the Cookies, also enjoying Munster Senior Cup and Limerick Charity Cup successes, and joined the Munster ‘A’ coaching set-up in the latter two seasons.

While next Friday’s fixture will undoubtedly be a new experience for the Grenoble Backs Coach, according to the man himself, certain parallels can also be drawn with his previous outings in Thomond.

“It’s different when you come back as a player because you are out on the pitch and you can actively change the outcome there and then, whereas as a coach all you can do is prepare the team to put their best foot forward.

“As a player last time out I got to play against some of my mates, now some of my mates are in the coaching setup so I’ll find myself in a similar seat again. Personally it will also it will be nice to head home and catch up with everyone. We base ourselves in UL for the week leading up to the game. It will be a nice change of environment for our lads and I know first-hand the top class training facilities at UL.

“There’s a real excitement and buzz within the squad about the prospect of playing Munster. They didn’t need me to tell them anything about the tradition of Thomond Park. One of the things that struck me most when I first arrived was the massive respect they have for the Munster.”

Purchase tickets online here, from the Munster Rugby Ticket Offices at Irish Independent Park or Thomond Park, or by calling 0818 719 300.