Internationals Return

15th July 2013 By Munster Rugby

Munster’s returning internationals including players from Ireland’s North America tour and the Emerging Ireland squad joined their colleagues in Cork today for the first day of their pre-season training.

Also in attendance was Munster’s newest signing Andrew Conway who took to the opening day with ease and looked comfortable in his new surroundings.

The forwards and backs split for the opening session with the backs hitting the running track with S&C Coach Aled Walters and the forwards were busy in the gym with S&C Coach Aidan O'Connell. The squad then came together for their field session which included skills and conditioning drills.

Behind the scenes Team Manager Niall O’Donovan is busy managing player movement over the summer months, organising the lead up to the pre-season games and planning for the season ahead.

“The players are dripping back. The first lot coming back two weeks ago, the internationals returned this morning and it will be a few weeks before the Lions return then. So it’s just a matter of coordinating everything for them, and there’s a lot of activity outside of training with summer camps, the Munster Rugby Talent Camp in Rockwell and sponsorship obligations.

It’s probably a busier time than when we are actually playing matches as there is a lot of preparation to be done and a lot of organisation to be done at this time. The departments all work closely together in getting ready for the new season.

We did La Rochelle the last two seasons and that was great and worked well, but we are staying here this year and putting plans in place for the next few weeks. We hope to spend a bit more time around the community with our support base over the next month and hopefully the people around the province will get to see the players a bit more than they would normally."

"High