A huge amount of the prestige and fame associated with Munster Rugby revolves around their exploits in Europe, and their Heineken Cup triumphs in 2006 and 2008 in particular.
With that in mind, it’s strange that the province only got into the European jersey game in the last few years, but they’ve done it with considerable aplomb in the four years since then.
The 2018/19 jersey is no exception – treading the line between the classic Munster home jersey that fans expect them to be wearing at Thomond Park, and something a little bit different to the regular design, which they’ll be keeping from last season.
And the fact that they’ll be wearing this shirt at Thomond Park is rather important to this new design. 2018 marks the 10th anniversary of the redevelopment of Thomond Park, and the erection of the two new stands that have become such a visual signature of the ground.
As rugby fans from all over will surely know, the east and west stands of the newly redeveloped Thomond Park are primarily red, but feature an irregular pattern of dark blue and gold seats.
This pattern is reflected on the design of this new European jersey, with scores of darker red squares accented with various dark blue and gold squares – just like on the Thomond Park stands.
Other than that facet, this is very much the classic Munster jersey – red, dark blue accents, clean and classy… nice.
European shirts are the chance for clubs to do something a little bit different, and often clubs take that as an encouragement to go crazy with it. It doesn’t have to be that way, however, as this shirt demonstrates – it’s cool, classy, original and very Munster.
Rugby Shirt Watch 