Too Strong In Spain

A Munster Rugby Development side travelled to Barcelona at the weekend and enjoyed an afternoon of running rugby where the squad crossed the line on 13 occasions against a Barcelona Club representative side.

In a one sided affair (7-95) Head Coach Peter Malone used the exercise to empty his bench at half-time, and the players maintained a high level of performance throughout the 80 minutes which was great to see according to Malone.

“Guys could have taken the gas off but they wanted to impress and push on, so they did that. And it was good just to get these guys playing together which doesn’t happen too often. Each of them enjoyed the opportunity to pull on the Munster jersey.”

Rugby is only developing in Barcelona and the fixture attracted over 1000 supporters at the new University of Barcelona rugby stadium. President of Rugby Barcelona Jordi Homs referred to the match as an “historical event”, and went on to say “there is a lot of work to be done in developing our team, in order to achieve better results.”

The try scorers included, Cillian Ansboro (2), Cillian Bohane (2), James Cronin (1), Peter McCabe (1), James McInerney (1), Harry McNulty (2), Jack O’Donoghue (2), Rory White (1), Niall Scannell (1), and taking the kicks were Johnny Holland and David Johnstone.

Academy player Shane Buckley picked up a knee injury during the game and is under observation this week.

Next up for the Munster Development squad is Russian pro club, Enisei STM, on April 8th. The fixture is a repeat of last year’s where Munster’s young guns out muscled the Russian side 34-24 at Dooradoyle. The venue and time are to be confirmed.

Development Squad: David Johnstone (UL Bohs); Rory White (UL Bohs), Harry McNulty (Young Munster), Cian Bohane (Dolphin), Cillian Ansboro (UL Bohs); Johnny Holland (Cork Con), Brian Haugh (Young Munster); Peter McCabe (UCC), James Rael (Garryowen), James Cronin (Dophin); John Madigan (Dolphin), Philip Donnellan (Cork Con); Shane Buckley (Garryowen), John Fitzgerald (UCC), Jack O’Donoghue (UL Bohs). Replacements (all used): Niall Scannell (Dolphin), Colm O’Sullivan (Bruff), Ger Sweeney (Midleton), Darren O’Shea (Dolphin), Darren Ryan (Young Munster), Killian O’Keeffe (Cork Con), James McInerney (Garryowen).

Barcelona TV added the following video about the game, click here to view.

Brian Haugh on the attack

Donnellan unchallenged in the lineout

Holding off the opposition

Both packs get set

Pre-match talk at Los Ramblas

Additonal match images can be found here.