Slattery: It’s Always Tight With Con, Always A Bit Of Drama

The steady pulse of people who grew up on its terraces, who played through its age-grades, who left and came back, who built their weekends and their friendships and sometimes entire years of their lives around the old ground at Tom Clifford Park.

For Ger Slattery, that rhythm has been the background noise of more than twenty years. From the schoolboy who captained St. Munchin’s College to Munster Schools Senior Cup glory, to looking for a home in senior rugby, to the hooker who became captain.

To the assistant coach who absorbed everything he could from those ahead of him, to the head coach now carrying the responsibility of a club that never lets its standards slip for long.

In the slow measure of those decades, he has learned that seasons, like careers, hinge on moments that appear small at first. A narrow loss that sits in the gut a bit longer than expected. A win that seems to lift a weight you did not realise had grown so heavy.

The voices around you when a big week arrives. The knowledge that the people gathered in the clubhouse have been there longer than you have been alive, long enough to remind you that the jersey is borrowed, not owned, and must be returned in better shape.

So when Slattery talks about Young Munster’s next outing, Saturday’s showdown with Cork Constitution in Energia All-Ireland League Men’s Division 1A (kick-off 2.30pm – live on irishrugby+), he does so with the mix of familiarity and meaning that twenty years tend to produce.

There is anticipation, yes, but also acknowledgment that derby games in Munster carry something different, that the crowd knows it, and that the people who have filled the pre-match lunch to capacity understand this is the sort of afternoon Young Munster measure themselves by.

“There’s no Limerick derby for us this year, so it’s Con and Nenagh, the two local derbies in terms of Munster rivalry,” Slattery told IrishRugby.ie.

“We’re looking forward to it. I think we’ve got a big crowd, the pre-lunch is sold out. There’s nothing separating us in the table.

“Probably two sides that have actually been playing well and just fell on the wrong side of the results. Apart from the last day against UCD –  we were pretty poor – before that we’d actually been playing quite well, just coming out the wrong side of the results.”

If there is an honesty that comes easily to him now, it is because he has seen both sides of seasons, the ones that build gradually into something promising, and the ones that slip away with only small regrets left to tally.

He knows Cork Constitution well enough from his playing days and as a coach, knows their coaches, their patterns, and above all the consistency that ensures they are always there in the spring when the table tightens.

“I think we’ve huge respect for Con. I know their coaches that well and they’re always in the mix come March, so we’ve huge respect for them.

“They’re a really good side and we really need to be at our best to get a good result. The crowd is coming in for it, they’ve sold out pre-lunch. The Nenagh one is a bit far away, we can’t really think about it yet, but it should be a cracker as the last game before Christmas.”

That final encounter with Nenagh Ormond before Christmas holds its own place in the imagination. The cold edge, the congested table, the sense of urgency to collect something tangible before the break. Slattery does not hide from that either.

The early part of this season had threatened to become one of those stories where a team plays well without reward, where positives are noted and performances praised but the table refuses to shift. For players, that limbo can turn quickly into frustration.

The former Munster and Ireland Club XV hooker, whose Cookies side sit seventh in the standings with one win in six matches, admitted: “It was a bit frustrating. It definitely felt like we were doing a lot of things right.

“But at the end of the day, we had a good chat before ‘Belvo, and we’ve got to get the result now and not just the performance, because obviously you don’t want to go too long into the season without picking up those wins.

“It felt like we got the monkey off the back (by beating Old Belvedere 22-13 at the start of the month). It was just a big pity we couldn’t back it up a week later.”

That 34-12 loss away to UCD in their most recent fixture still lingers slightly, not in a painful sense, but with the mild annoyance of knowing a step forward might have been firmer had they followed it with another.

There is no hiding place in Division 1A. No gentle weeks. No matches that do not matter. The response after that disappointment, he says, was to push harder, not pull back.

We had a good week last week. We probably had a more intense week than usual on a down week, which was after the loss to UCD.

“We felt we needed to go a bit harder through them Thursday, and then obviously get the weekend off, but we hope the lads are coming back fairly fresh now and looking forward to Saturday.”

Slattery has been around long enough to know that derbies bring their own energy anyway, the kind you cannot manufacture on a training pitch. Some games ask for tactical precision, derby weeks demand something more instinctive, more rooted in who you are as a club.

With Young Munster stuck on just one win and only two points between them and Cork Con, this is a big eight-pointer that might have very little between the sides come that last blast of the whistle on Saturday afternoon.

“That is what you’d expect anyway. I think there’s not much separating us on the table, and then I think both teams know how big this game is. Going into the last block of three before Christmas, it’s always a very, very tight game.

“There’s always a bit of drama involved one way or another, and both teams will be really looking forward to this. I think the supporters are going to enjoy this one as well from both sides, so yeah, it’s an exciting weekend ahead.”

Across the seasons, Young Munster have always had to navigate challenges familiar to Limerick clubs, the annual outflow of players, the need to rebuild without losing identity, the requirement to blend homegrown talent with others brought in to strengthen the squad.

Slattery makes no excuses about it, but acknowledges the scale of the challenge, saying: “We’d obviously lost a few last year, went to Dublin and different things like that, and we kind of had to regroup.

“We were fairly happy with the recruitment and we’re happy with our squad, to be honest with you. There’s a good blend of our own lads, and then a couple of contracted lads as well.

“It’s trying to get that group to gel as well. So, we’re hopeful now we can get a good result (on) Saturday and try to keep going.”

Recruitment in club rugby is often portrayed as the science of signing the right names. But Slattery sees it differently, as something more human, more connected to belonging and identity than outsiders sometimes realise.

“I suppose if you’re bringing lads into the club, you want them to settle and be happy here off the pitch as well, and you want to give them a good idea of who they’re playing for and who they’re representing and what has gone before them.

“So, that’s definitely something that we’ve tried to do, and I think we’ve done well from that side of things. But if you look across 1A, there’s guys scattered from all over Ireland at different clubs.

“We’ve a lot of lads going up from Limerick and Cork playing in Dublin and stuff like that. It’s not unusual for any club to compete in 1A, all the clubs need to branch out to strengthen.”

The head coach role is still relatively new in the long sweep of Slattery’s life with the Cookies, but it already carries the weight and ease of something that fits him.

Experience with being the head coach in St. Munchin’s and assistant coach at the club crafted a pathway to the hot seat in Greenfields. He was also the Ireland Club international team’s scrum and defence coach last season.

He has always been regarded as a leader, the sort who led quietly, made standards visible rather than declarative. Coaching, he says, was the natural continuation of all that.

“It definitely brings different challenges in terms of managing the wider group, the off-the-field. There’s a lot going on in your head on a match week, as opposed to maybe just being the forwards coach or the defence coach and looking after that side of it.

“I’ve enjoyed it. Coaching is what I really enjoy doing. The off-the-field is something that has to be done, but this year has been a big change.

“We’ve got a new Chairman of Rugby, Mark Connolly, and he’s going to take on a lot of that off-the-field stuff now, which allows me to focus more on the pitch and the performance and things.”

In the final years of his playing career, the Limerick man was already doing both, scrummaging and tackling on Saturdays, running lineout sessions and forwards meetings midweek. Coaching has really come naturally to him.

“My last few years of playing, I was actually coaching the forwards, and I suppose I always enjoyed the leadership side of things, being captain of teams or whatever, and I did feel coaching was the way I was going to go.

“I think the transition worked well in terms of having that input when I was playing, and then being the assistant to Gearóid (Prendergast) for a while, obviously learning from him and watching how the head coach works.”

What gives Slattery a certain calmness, perhaps, is that long arc, the long-standing history wearing the club’s famous colours, the familiarity that comes from seeing the cycle of generations.

Players come and go. Coaches move on. Seasons turn. But the club endures, and so do the expectations of those who pack the terraces every weekend. They know what Young Munster rugby looks like when it is done well. They know effort when they see it. They know the value of a derby week.

This weekend, against Cork Constitution, the stakes will feel familiar, tight margins, heavy collisions, the roar of a home crowd that recognises when their side needs lifting.

Slattery, who has been a teacher at his alma mater St. Munchin’s since 2016, has lived through too many derby afternoons to attempt to script anything in advance. Rugby, especially in the Energia All-Ireland League, is rarely interested in tidy narratives.

But he knows this much – a win changes momentum. A derby win changes belief. And belief, in Young Munster, has always been the foundation for everything that follows.

In the end, though, the table remains the measure every club feels, even if they insist they do not check it too often. Young Munster are aware of where they sit, aware of what a good result on Saturday might unlock. 

The league is tight at this early point, tighter than even recent seasons, and Slattery knows the congestion above them can shift quickly.

There is a flicker of realism here, not pessimism. Just the understanding of someone who has coached long enough to know that hoping for favours is a fool’s game.

“We’re not thinking too far ahead. It’s definitely just focused on Saturday, and I do think if we did get a good result, there’s other teams playing each other, the table will probably look a bit different.

“There’s still a lot of rugby to be played, and it’s just important that we start getting those results now. I think we’re nine points off fourth or something, that gap might close after the weekend if results went our way.

“So, that’s kind of a bigger picture focus for us. I think it’s all about Saturday. Lansdowne and Ballynahinch are playing each other, and then you’ve Con who will be looking at it as well, and then you’ve the others, like Clontarf, Mary’s, and Terenure.

“It’s a very, very challenging top four to get into. If we look after our own results, the table will look after itself.

“When you start waiting for favours from other teams, that’s a problem, and we’ve had that in the past. It’s something we want to rectify fairly quickly if we want to have a successful season,” he added.

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