Charleville Meeting Brings The Curtain Down

The Charleville Park Hotel was the venue yesterday where the Munster squad held their wrap-up meeting that brought the curtain down on their 2011/2012 season.

At the meeting David Wallace, Mick O'Driscoll and Jerry Flannery officially cut their ties with the squad having earlier in the year announced their retirement from rugby. O'Driscoll has been named in the Barbarians squad for their three match series towards the end of this month.

The trio who between them have amassed over 500 caps each received a gift to mark their time with Munster, Flannery received his from skipper Paul O'Connel, O'Driscoll from Marcus Horan while Ronan O'Gara did the honours for Wallace.

Tony McGahan also took his leave, he departs for Australia tomorrow while Lifeimi Mafi (Perpignan), Tomas O'Leary (London Irish) and Denis Fogarty (Aurillac) also bade farewell to the wider group.

The proceedings were supervised by team manager Shaun Payne who also departs in the coming weeks. He returns to his native South Africa where he expects to be involved in non rugby business activity.

Backs coach Jason Holland and Strength & Conditioning coach Joey Gallanagh also ended their terms with Munster, Holland bringing an end to an illustrious career that began as a player back in 1999 and ended 102 caps later, after a short break back home, in a management role.

Those players not involved in the upcoming international campaign, now take a well earned rest, with pre 2012/2013 season training scheduled to begin on June 19th for some and June 25th for those involved in the New Zealand tour.