Since Munster clinched the last Women's Interprovincial Series back in September 2021, there's been a significant change in the coaching setup.
The province regained their Interpro title under head coach Matt Brown, assisted by Niamh Briggs, who at the time was still relatively new to the coaching game.
Her star has grown in the 18 months since though, brought into the Irish set-up to work as assistant to Greg McWilliams, while she continued to manage UL Bohemians in the All-Ireland League.
Commitments with his other coaching roles at Old Crescent and Crescent College meant that Brown had to step back when the 2022/23 Interpro Series was moved to this January window, with the province promoting Briggs to the head coach role, and bringing in Fiona Hayes as an assistant, along with former Munster front row Mike Storey who had been involved with the women's team for several years.
Brown's own circumstances changed when he was promoted to pathways development coach with Munster, which meant he had to step away from his role in schools rugby, opening up the chance to get the band back together again.
"Purely the way it happened, I interviewed for the Munster pathways coach, I got that, and they said they could factor in the women's team, so happy days," he says of being back with the Munster women's team this season, working on the backline and defence under Briggs, who he describes as "the ultimate rugby nerd".
"We bounce things off each other, and Mike [Storey] and Fiona [Hayes] as well. It suits, because I have a lot on me plate with the new role, so a lot of the off-pitch prep work, Niamh will take care of, and thank God she does because she's really good at it.
"She's great, I don't think she'll mind me saying, but she's the ultimate rugby nerd. She'd be coming up with some stats and I'd be thinking, 'where'd you get that from?'
"She knows the game, and I think she's open enough that we can bounce things off each other. She has so much experience in the women's game which I didn't have, and still don't really, she has that day-to-day, she's just so hands-on.
"I think it's really appropriate she's running the show now, and I'm more than happy to help where I can. She's well able."
Brown, who hails from the rugby league heartland of Leigh in the north-west of England, has been working with Munster since 2016, first as a club and community rugby officer, before being promoted to a pathways coach last year, combining that with several roles in the club and schools game in recent years.
And while he says there are differences to the coaching in the men's and women's game, he believes the willingness of the women's team to learn has been eye-opening.
"You can't ignore the physiological differences. men who have been in the game so long and have benefitted from a lot of intense, physical training from a young age, and they've been playing the game since they were four years old, so there's that innate game sense that you probably don't get coaching the girls because they come to it a lot later.
"Having said that, to coach the women is a really unique experience, because they're so attentive. They're like sponges, and as long as you're not bluffing they'll work to a plan and try problem solve themselves. I find sometimes in the men's game you'll hear, 'well, I've always done it like this', so it's nuances like that.
"I think the main thing now is that when you see the underage women's game, you have girls of four and five starting, so it's only a matter of time before they rise, and you're dealing with people with the same game sense, because they've been in those scenarios and it's natural to them.
"We have some phenomenal athletes in the Munster side, and some of them are 18 or 19 and you expect certain things from them, but then you have to realise they might have just been playing the game three years. There's certain detail, and awareness that's going to take another year or two, it's all catching up and going in the right direction."
With Munster and Leinster both winning comfortably against Ulster and Connacht respectively in the opening round of games last week, their meeting this afternoon at Musgrave Park (12.15pm) appears to be an unofficial title-decider.
And although Munster were 34-0 winners against Ulster in Round 1, he says his side have "a job to do defensively" if they're to get the better of Tania Rosser's side.
"There were certain things we got away with against Ulster defensively that I don't think we can get away with the next day. A bit of naivety, but when we identified them, they're not massive fixes.
"By the same token, we don't want to be giving them space to run. They've got a lot of pace and we need to close that down. I think our ball retention in the first half was good and if we can keep the ball with us and not them, then we might be in good shape but I'd say it will be some battle.
"I certainly wouldn't be reading too much into the scoreline so it's going to be a case of what we can tweak. We want to play the game a certain way and we don't want to distract from that. If we can play that way, it means we're managing the ball and they're not."
