Munster Rugby Season In Stats

A fantastic campaign for Munster ended with two senior trophies as the Munster Women clinched consecutive Vodafone Interprovincial titles and the Men’s team won the URC.

Scroll down to see the vital stats from both sides. Both teams will be involved in a double-header against Barbarians in Thomond Park on Saturday, September 30, with tickets available here.

Munster Women

The Munster Women clinched their second consecutive Vodafone Interprovincial Championship in January with three bonus-point wins in three games.

The three games were won by a combined score of 110-41 as Niamh Briggs’ side scored 18 tries with 11 different try-scorers.

The campaign started with a 34-0 victory over Ulster at Musgrave Park as Geena Behan, Eilís Cahill, Gillian Coombes, Ciara Farrell, Kate Flannery and Heather Kennedy made their senior Munster debuts.

The second game at Musgrave Park saw Munster beat Leinster 26-17 in another bonus-point victory to set them up perfectly for the final day trip to Connacht.

Needing just a bonus-point, the side recorded a brilliant 50-24 win at the Sportsground.

Deirbhile Nic a Bháird was the standout performer with two Player of the Match awards and Maeve Óg O’Leary was Player of the Match against Leinster.

The 11 try-scorers were: Deirbhile Nic a Bháird (four), Claire Bennett (two), Eilís Cahill (two) Clodagh O’Halloran (two), Róisín Ormond (two), Stephanie Nunan, Aoife Doyle, Stephanie Carroll, Rachel Allen, Heather Kennedy and Alana McInerney.

Captain Nicole Cronin kicked nine conversions with Kate Flannery adding one.

Munster Men

Munster won 16 out of 27 games in 2022/23 as Graham Rowntree’s side won the URC and reached the last 16 of the Champions Cup along with beating a South African touring side for the first time.

52 players were involved in matchday squads including nine Academy players.

After a tough start that saw Munster win two of the opening seven games, the side recovered brilliantly to win the league title after away victories against Glasgow, Leinster and Stormers in the knock-out stages. Munster were the only side to win away at Glasgow and Stormers all season.

Since the turn of the year, Munster won 10, drew one and lost three of the final 14 games of the campaign (nine away, five home).

Attack & Defence

Munster scored 655 points and 90 tries in 27 games, averaging 24 points per game and 3.3 tries.

We conceded 522 points and 66 tries – conceding an average score of 19 points and 2.4 tries.

Munster only conceded five tries in four Champions Cup Pool games, joint-top with Leinster for the least tries conceded.

Debuts

There have been debuts for seven players this season, including four Greencore Munster Rugby Academy members.

The full list of debutants includes: Edwin Edogbo, Malakai Fekitoa, Antoine Frisch, Fionn Gibbons, Kiran McDonald, Conor Phillips and Ruadhán Quinn.

There have been Munster Champions Cup debuts for Fekitoa, Frisch, Paddy Patterson and RG Snyman.

Points & Appearances

Joey Carbery was the top points scorer with 124 points (92 URC & 32 Champions Cup) – Carbery made his most appearances in a season (17) since joining the province in 2018.

Gavin Coombes was the top try-scorer with 14 in 22 appearances.

Shane Daly played the most minutes this year racking up an impressive 1,800 minutes on the field in 24 appearances (23 starts). Daly also made three appearances for Emerging Ireland and played once for Ireland A.

Jean Kleyn’s 24 starts were more than anyone else with the durable lock starting the last 19 games in-a-row.

Jack O’Donoghue made 23 appearances with Diarmuid Barron, Gavin Coombes, Alex Kendellen, Niall Scannell all on 22 for the season.

Awards & Landmarks

Gavin Coombes (3), John Hodnett (3), Peter O’Mahony (2), Tadhg Beirne (2), Jack Crowley (2), Joey Carbery, Paddy Patterson, Jean Kleyn and Calvin Nash were Munster’s Player of the Match winners.

Jack Crowley won Young Player of the Year at the Rugby Players Ireland awards.

Gavin Coombes was included in the initial longlist for European Player of the Year after the Pool stages with two tries in four appearances.

Tadhg Beirne’s try for Munster away to Toulouse in January was named as the Champions Cup Try of the Season for 2022/23.

John Hodnett was added to the United Rugby Championship Awards roll of honour by collecting the Tackle Machine prize.

Gavin Coombes was included in the URC Elite XV, joining ‘Tackle Machine’ John Hodnett in being recognised in the competition’s end-of-season awards.

First year Academy player Ruadhán Quinn became the youngest player to represent Munster in the professional era when he came on against Zebre in October 2022 at the age of 18.

Keith Earls and John Ryan made landmark 200th Munster appearances with Niall Scannell reaching 150 caps.

Tadhg Beirne, Joey Carbery, Craig Casey, Shane Daly, Ben Healy, Diarmuid Barron and Calvin Nash all made their 50th Munster appearances this season.

Internationals

20 Munster senior and Academy players have been on international duty for Ireland, Ireland A, Emerging Ireland and the Ireland U20s.

Tadhg Beirne, Craig Casey, Jack Crowley, Dave Kilcoyne, Jeremy Loughman, Conor Murray and Peter O’Mahony have lined out for the Ireland senior men’s team with Crowley and Loughman earning their first Ireland caps. Crowley also made his 6 Nations debut.

Additionally, Casey, Loughman and Crowley have featured for Ireland A along with Diarmuid Barron, Gavin Coombes, Calvin Nash and Shane Daly.

Crowley also represented Emerging Ireland on their tour to South Africa as Barron, Nash and Daly made that trip too along with Tom Ahern, Antoine Frisch, John Hodnett, Roman Salanoa and Josh Wycherley. Alex Kendellen was selected but was unavailable due to injury.

Academy duo Ruadhán Quinn and Evan O’Connell featured for the Ireland U20s along with Brian Gleeson, Danny Sheahan and Jacob Sheahan.

Salanoa received his first call-up to the Ireland senior men’s team with Ben Healy making his Scotland debut in the Six Nations.

Malakai Fekitoa also lined out for Tonga this season.

Attendances

Munster have sold-out four home games in three different venues this season – Páirc Uí Chaoimh, Thomond Park and Musgrave Park.

A record crowd for rugby in Munster saw 41,400 supporters attend Páirc Uí Chaoimh for the sold-out clash against South Africa A in November.

25,600 were in attendance at Thomond Park for the URC Interpro derby against Leinster on St Stephen’s Day.

Musgrave Park was sold out for two of the three games at the Cork venue. An 8,008 crowd was in attendance for the matches against Lions and Scarlets.

Additionally, the 21,884 attendance for Munster v Toulouse at Thomond Park was the biggest crowd in Round 1 of the Champions Cup.

Departing Players

Our thanks to Malakai Fekitoa, Ben Healy, Liam O’Connor, Eoin O’Connor, Paddy Kelly, Oli Morris, Chris Farrell and Dan Goggin as they have completed their time at the province.

See videos of the departing players below with highlights of Malakai Fekitoa, Ben Healy and Liam O’Connor to follow next week.