Munster may not have lifted any silverware for 12 years but Denis Leamy says there are plenty of winners in the dressing room to guide the young guns as many face into a final for the first time.
DHL Stormers, the defending champions, host Munster on Saturday in the BKT United Rugby Championship final in Cape Town where there are expected to be around 2,000 travelling supporters in the 55,000 sell-out crowd.
Head coach Graham Rowntree won multiple Premiership titles with Leicester and three Five/Six Nations titles with England, while defence coach Leamy was part of Ireland's Grand Slam-winning outfit in 2009 and won the Heineken Cup in 2006 and 2008 with Munster.
Ireland players Peter O'Mahony, Keith Earls and Conor Murray have been central to Ireland success over the last number of seasons, while RG Snyman and Malakai Fekitoa boast World Cup winners medals with South Africa (2019) and New Zealand (2015), respectively.
Asked about how the younger players might deal with the nerves of playing in such a hostile environment, Leamy said: "I think it's very important that the group around them are good with them.
"How we message and how we stand in front of the group.
"We're very lucky in terms of having a lot of experience in the room in terms of winning silverware.
"I mentioned Pete earlier, he's won a lot with Ireland, Conor's won a lot with Ireland, you look at the World Cup winners, RG Snyman, Malakai Fekitoa, so there are people.
"You even take it back to someone like Graham Rowntree, who has won so much himself so I think it is important that we control that environment a bit and use the experiences of the guys who have played in big finals.
"Our day-to-day has, I believe, set them up for this final. We don't big up any game. It has always been about the next game. This is a big game, a huge game, but we will approach it in the same fashion as we approached Leinster and Glasgow and going back right through the season.
"We have created those sorts of habits. We haven’t tried to create a different level to different games we play, where we have to go to the well for one game and maybe not for another.
"We are consistent in our actions and in our messages to put the boys in as good a space as we can."
Leamy confirmed that out-half Ben Healy and Snyman are on course to complete their return-to-play protocols
"They trained [Wednesday] so they're looking good," he said.
"We will obviously monitor then after the session for a few hours but they came to the session really well.
"So everything everyone is good to go. The squad is good to go."
Munster lost five of their opening seven games, and are in their first final since the 16-6 no-show against Leinster in 2021.
Leamy, who joined from Leinster at the start of the season under new boss Rowntree, admitted that getting this far in their first year was not really on the radar.
"Was it part of the plan? I don’t think I can say it was part of the plan," he said.
"Obviously, you can dream and you need to dream in sport, don’t you?
"But the reality is, and I would have sat in front of you guys [media], going back in August, September, October and it was game-by-game.
"And honestly, it has been game-by-game. It has felt like a lot of these games have been almost that cup final mentality.
"We haven’t played many games that didn’t have huge significance. Every game we have played has almost been a cup final mentality.
"So, to get to the actual final and to have something available that is tangible at the end of this game is fantastic.
"The process of going through that huge battle that it’s going to be, well that’s the challenge and that’s the stuff that we are really excited about."
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