Graham Rowntree expecting an old school ding-dong in the rain

"Crikey, the weather is going to be a real factor," smiled the Munster supremo before kick-off. "It's going to be a real battle".

Just under 20 minutes to go now until the game starts.

A pre-match change for Ospreys

In a late change to the team, Ben Warren replaces Tom Botha at tighthead, with Math Iorwerth-Scott coming in on the bench.

1 hour until kick off, live on @S4C and @PremSportsTV#TogetherAsOne pic.twitter.com/tfvNI2awIG

— Ospreys (@ospreys) October 5, 2024

Will the weather be a leveller?

Jack Crowley #MUNvOSP #SUAF pic.twitter.com/lXDheGdkBD

— Munster Rugby (@Munsterrugby) October 5, 2024

Tadhg Beirne on becoming Munster's captain - when once he could only joke about taking on such a role

It was a relaxed Tadhg Beirne who met with the media at Munster's high performance HQ at UL on Tuesday afternoon. Here's what he had to say about the captain's call coming late in his career.

Tadhg Beirne never believed that he was destined to be a captain, let alone a Munster captain.

The 32-year-old wasn't one of those players who led teams on the way up from school level.

He wasn't a Peter O'Mahony, who he followed into the role last month after Graham Rowntree took 10 months to appoint the province's ninth permanent captain.

But here he is. “Wig (Rowntree) told me last year I was in contention," said Beirne. "I didn’t really think at the time that it would end up being me, but I'm very honoured that it is me."

The captain's call has come late enough. Beirne recalls when he first skippered Munster under Johann van Graan, how nervous he felt before realising that sometimes it's just an extra "tag" on the name.

"Even in today's game half the time you don't really need a captain, the ref's not really listening to you anyway," he laughed.

"But there's certainly an onus to perform and I enjoy that bit of pressure, it just gives you an extra kick to make sure you're setting the standards for everyone.

"I probably used to joke, 'Imagine me being captain' to some of the lads. Like, I don't think I necessarily would've been picturing being captain, especially in my earlier years."

Beirne points to O'Mahony still playing a major role as part of a leadership group that also includes Jack Crowley and Diarmuid Barron, how the former skipper takes a lot of the weight off him.

But he has evolved into more of a leader himself in recent years. "You have to step up a bit more than what I’d been used to," said the ultra-consistent second row.

“I definitely had to put a little bit more onus on myself about talking in meetings and that kind of stuff.

"I don't think speaking comes naturally to me. You talk about Pete being a natural leader, he's incredible at making speeches, at gearing up lads, but I don't think I'm going to be that captain.

"I've a bit of a different approach. I won't do as much talking, a lot of the other lads will be doing that and I'll speak when I feel the need to speak.

"My best way is to try to lead by example. So I'll just be a bit of a calm presence around the place when I can be.

"There's many types of leadership and I've learned a lot from Pete over the years by watching him lead. Hopefully I'll be able to use some of his traits."

You can imagine O'Mahony's reaction in the wake of Munster's shock defeat at Zebre - how he would be the embodiment of the furious response that Rowntree will demand against Ospreys at Virgin Media Park on Saturday.

The Corkman will have let his feelings be known after that 42-33 loss in Parma. Like O'Mahony and Crowley, Beirne makes his season debut this week. Did the Kildare man feel the need to say anything extra, given his new status?

"That just kind of naturally happens," he said. "We talk about standards here and you're trying to do all the time, drive standards. The onus is on us, particularly the older, more capped lads, to drive those standards.

"There's things you have to address. They don't just come from me, but from many people. It's about making sure it doesn't happen again this weekend.

"The coaches have brought the messages and everyone knows it's not acceptable, especially when they show the clips - you can feel in the room everyone knows that's just not good enough and will say it.

"It might be another kick up the ass if we haven't trained well but we've spoken about that standard and us being underneath that. So if we don't start reaching that soon I can imagine those meetings won't be as nice."

Beirne knows that Munster were hammered for the Zebre defeat but it's the internal review that will have stung hardest.

"You talk about the media coming at you, that's just normal," he said. "When you're not performing you're going to get slated, that's just part of it.

"But I'm not worried because last year we got to a semi-final, we topped the League, but we didn't start well.

"We always find our rhythm no matter what and it's going to be no different this year.

"We've a massive opportunity to go to Cork and set things right - set a standard that we want to keep chasing,

"You're going to have bad weeks and I can guarantee you there'll be another bad week during the year and we'll be like, 'Jesus, we need a kick up our ass', and that's just part of rugby."

Tadhg Beirne pictured ahead of his first coin toss as Munster's new captain

The pitch

It's a wet one in Cork ahead of Munster v Ospreys

@rte2 & @rteplayer https://t.co/b2OI4OoWVJ pic.twitter.com/Pru4lXZR1a

— RTÉ Sport (@RTEsport) October 5, 2024

The teams

Fresh from their shock defeat at Zebre last weekend, Munster had made eight changes for the visit of Ospreys.

As expected, Graham Rowntree has handed first appearances of the season to his new captain Tadhg Beirne and also to Peter O'Mahony and Jack Crowley.

It is a timely return to action for the trio as the province needs to get back to winning ways as soon as possible after their surprise set-back.

But centre Alex Nankivell misses out with a shoulder injury after it was hoped he would be available, so he joins the casualty list with Shane Daly (elbow) and Thaakir Abrahams (leg).

Bryan Fitzgerald makes his first start for the Reds after making a good impact off the bench last week, while 21-year-old academy winger Shay McCarthy, Jeremy Loughman, Niall Scannell and Jack O’Donoghue also come into the starting side.

Mike Haley, Calvin Nash and McCarthy start in the back three. Craig Casey and Crowley are in the half-backs as Fitzgerald and Tom Farrell start together in midfield. A positional change sees Farrell return to outside centre.

Loughman, Scannell and Oli Jager are the front row picks, with Jean Kleyn and Beirne in the second row. O’Mahony, John Hodnett and O’Donoghue make up the back row, with Gavin Coombes, Conor Murray and Tony Butler among the replacements.

Steffan Thomas gets his first competitive start for the Ospreys at loosehead.

Munster: Mike Haley, Calvin Nash, Tom Farrell, Bryan Fitzgerald, Shay McCarthy, Jack Crowley, Craig Casey, Jeremy Loughman, Niall Scannell, Oli Jager, Jean Kleyn, Tadhg Beirne (CAPT), Peter O'Mahony, John Hodnett, Jack O'Donoghue

Replacements: Diarmuid Barron, John Ryan, Stephen Archer, Fineen Wycherley, Gavin Coombes, Conor Murray, Tony Butler, Jack Daly

Ospreys: Max Nagy, Iestyn Hopkins, Owen Watkin, Phil Cokanasiga, Ryan Conbeer, Dan Edwards, Reuben Morgan-Williams, Steffan Thomas, Dewi Lake, Tom Botha, Huw Sutton, Adam Beard, James Ratti, Jac Morgan (CAPT) Morgan Morris

Replacements: Sam Parry, Garyn Phillips, Ben Warren, Lewis Jones, Harri Deaves, Luke Davies, Jack Walsh, Keiran Williams

Jack Crowley back in red tonight as he looks to back up one big season with another

Jack Crowley's season starts in Cork tonight for Munster - and he wants it to end in the Lions' No.10 jersey in Sydney on August 2 next year.

The 24-year-old is one of the big guns that Munster are rolling out against Ospreys in the wake of their seismic loss at Zebre last weekend, with Tadhg Beirne and Peter O'Mahony also making their campaign bow. A big response is expected.

There's an orange weather warning on Leeside but the worst of the conditions will hopefully pass through before kick-off. Either way, Crowley has to hit the ground running to direct Munster's on-field production.

New Reds skipper Beirne believes the evolution in the out-half's game will be evident this season and that the province will be the better for it.

“He’s definitely more mature, move vocal for sure," said Beirne. “He’s not as…erratic, would be the word. He’s calm now and you can see how much better he is when he is calm.

“At times when he came in, he had that sense of ‘I need to prove myself here’. But he has got that out of his game and that’s why he’s become such a good No. 10.”

For Munster's defence coach Denis Leamy, there's a real resemblance in Crowley's development to the path taken by Johnny Sexton as he came through to establish himself as Leinster and Ireland's top out-half.

"Ah the scope is huge, like," said Leamy. "He's still such a young player and he still has so much to learn, and I think Jack would be the first one to tell you that.

"So his ability to get better is huge and he's definitely somebody interested in terms of his growth mindset and he's interested in getting better.

"You know, his conversations, he's into the coaches constantly, he's very diligent in how he's looking to grow his game and he's a real pro, a great kid to be around and I enjoy personally working with him so much and I just think who knows how good he's going to be?

“I’d the pleasure of working with Johnny Sexton as a player, I played against him and coached him.

“If you told me Johnny Sexton would go on to achieve what he would when he was a raw 24-year-old, you couldn’t say he’d become that player.

“Jack is in that sort of bracket where he can keep layering and layering and layering. Time will tell how good he can be.”

Munster beat Ospreys in last year's URC quarter-final. Leamy described tonight's visitors to Virgin Media Park as the most underrated team in the competition, and he praises the Welsh team's "quality and spirit".

He added: “Teams like that are a handful, they’ve got quality. The main thing is that it’s very much about what we bring, that’s the key message.

"We’ve got to look at ourselves, what we do well and while there’s a very good team against us we’ve got to get ourselves right.”

Skipper Beirne added: “They’re a good side, you look at the team sheet you kind of forget how many good players they have, young guys putting their hands up for international selection.

“We played them in the quarter-final last season, we made it harder than we should have, but they’ll be coming over looking for a win.

"They should have beaten Dragons in the first weekend, they put a good score up on Stormers. It’s going to be a tough game, but we’ve a good track record in Cork and hopefully we keep that up.”

Rain town

An orange weather warning that came into place for Cork since midnight and while conditions were initially calm on Leeside, the rain finally arrived this aftenroon and has been coming down with a vengeance over the last few hours.

While other sporting events in the city and county were moved around, Munster Rugby were confident that this URC game could go ahead due to the 4G pitch in place at Virgin Media Park and while it is taking on water, the game looks set to go ahead as scheduled with a 7.35pm kick-off.