KILCOYNE EXCITED BY REDS REBUILD
IT’S ALMOST eleven years ago since Dave Kilcoyne made the first of his 203 appearances for Munster but he’s never experienced training at such a high tempo that they are going through at the moment under Graham Rowntree.
The veteran prop, like the coaching team, pleads that it will take time to turn that level of training into tangible rewards on the pitch but the Ireland international is adamant it is heading in the right direction.
“If you look at how we’re training this year... I’ve been at Munster a long, long time and we are training at a tempo that I’ve never trained at with Munster before.
“Our sessions are excellent in terms of putting skills under pressure at high tempo, and that’s what we need.
“I think it definitely took us a while to get used to it. We’re slowly getting into it,” said Kilcoyne after they got their first win of the season with a 21-5 win over Zebre Parma.
However, after failing to get a bonus point and plenty of errors, they will head to bottom-of-the-table Connacht on Friday night.
“A week is a lifetime in this game. Yeah, there’s plenty of work-ons. We’ll definitely take the positives from that game.
Maul
“I thought our maul was very good. I thought set piece ... so, I think there’s definitely areas we’ll take to build on but there are definitely areas we can get better — especially in our D, I think.
“We have bought into the system that Leams (Denis Leamy) has brought in. He’s been excellent.
“It’s just new things, new coaches, and they’ve brought in completely new ways to play.
“It’s very exciting. In my opinion, it’s the way rugby should be played. And we’re all just trying to get to grips with it,” said the 33-year old.
Rowntree remarked that he has never seen Kilcoyne, who won the last of his 48 caps against Scotland in the Six Nations earlier this year before suffering a neck injury, as fit and the Limerick native says he’s just delighted to be back at the coalface.
“Wig (Rowntree) says it as it is. I do feel very good. I was blowing, definitely, last week: that was my first start in seven months since that Scotland game in the Six Nations. I had a long time out of the game and I suppose, for me, it definitely created a hunger for what you’re missing.”