Holland making every minute count
Experienced second-row seizing his chance after long apprenticeship behind several Munster legends
BILLY HOLLAND watched enough Munster matches from the stand to appreciate his status as a front-liner in the current set-up.
For so long, he was stuck behind an A-list cast of second-rows. He considered leaving his home province twice, but stuck it out. Suddenly, at 32, it’s all been worth the effort.
This season, he has started in every game the Reds have played and in a world where minutes are managed he is that rarest of creatures.
Some would baulk at the work-load, if he were higher up the international pecking order he wouldn’t be permitted to play that many games but while he may be due a rest he is in no mood to take one.
“There are probably only a handful of players in the country who can afford to do that and get picked the following weekend,” he said with a wry smile. “The rest of us mere mortals would be told, ‘good luck’.
“It is great. It is what everyone wants to do, play every weekend. I suppose the more you play, the fitter you get, the more you’re in tune with the team and the more you play the easier it gets.
“Certainly, when you are at the end of a 10-game block there before the autumn internationals the energy levels were beginning to wane, but you have a nice break then, so I’m flying it again.
SWING
“If you take it that the international lads that we have who came back, more often than not they like to get a game before Europe, it gets you back into the swing of things.
“Like you take Conor (Murray), Pete (O’Mahony), CJ (Stander) and Andrew Conway, they had three training sessions to get back into our way of playing, our style of playing.
“That is a very difficult thing to do, so yeah, there is a balancing act between game time and rest time, but the same as the balancing act between being fresh and actually knowing the calls and not having to think about it and being second nature, so it is testament to those four lads and everyone else who came back that they were able to flick into it so quickly.”
Holland appreciates the exposure because it was a long time coming.
He made his Munster debut in 2007, but made just one European start and nine substitute appearances in the subsequent six seasons. In the past three years, he’s started 11 out of a possible 17 games, coming off the bench in four others.
“I suppose when you have to work hard for something you do appreciate it more,” he conceded.
“I didn’t get anything easy, sitting behind Donnacha O’Callaghan, Paul O’Connell, Mick O’Driscoll and Donnacha Ryan for years.
“But you learn a huge amount off them, and I’d like to think I did learn a huge amount off them, and then when you get your opportunity it means a hell of a lot, and I see guys who are 19/20 who are in the squad and kind of peeved off at not playing a whole lot and they’ve got a cap or two, and I hadn’t even been capped at that stage.
“You’d kind of be laughing at them, but it does make it all the sweeter, and big days like last weekend and next Sunday in Welford Road, they’re the games you play for, and they’re the reason I stayed put and worked hard to get my position, and it does make it all the sweeter, particularly when you win.”
His loyalty was, understandably, tested.
“Yeah, many (times). Every two years when your contract was up. You have to think about it,” he admitted.
“There was one stage when I came very, very close to leaving and I tossed a coin and it landed on ‘leave’. So I tossed
it another 25/30 times and that itself gave me the answer I was looking for.
“Yeah, it could have worked differently. There were injuries the following year and I got a few more games. It’s stubbornness. There’s plenty of fellas... you look at Tommy O’Donnell.
“I was in the academy with Tommy, the same with Duncan Williams, it’s stubbornness that keeps you in there, and it makes you work harder then when you’re on the pitch.
“You really don’t want to let the side down. It means a huge amount to you.”
On Sunday, he’ll be at the forefront of the effort against a Leicester Tigers side determined to keep themselves in the European hunt by reversing last week’s loss at Thomond Park.
A year ago, they did just that – now Holland wants the team to demonstrate they’ve progressed in the past 12 months by becoming the first team to beat the two-time European champions back-toback in the history of the competition.
“I think we have progressed in many areas from last season and it’s days like last Saturday that prove that you have progressed from last season, rather than just feeling that you have,” he said.
“You can just prove to yourself, the coaches and your supporters that you have taken a step forward.
“So, it is a big game for us as a squad to see what direction we’re going.
“You take aside the group and all of that, to go to Leicester and try to do something no team has ever done in Europe is a good challenge.
“Leicester haven’t lost back-to-back in 17 years so you are going over there, it is going to be difficult, but to progress, you need to get away wins.
“If you don’t win your home games you just don’t progress, but you do need to pick one up on the road and I think we have to take confidence from what we did last weekend.”