Foley And Fitzgerald Address Report Issue

Munster Rugby Head Coach Anthony Foley and CEO Garrett Fitzgerald met with the media today ahead of Friday night’s Guinness PRO12 opener against Edinburgh at Thomond Park (ko 7:35pm).

Foley and Fitzgerald took the opportunity to address a recent management report that was accidentally sent to the squad.

The email was sent last Wednesday and the players were notified within an hour that the email was dispatched accidentally through human error.

Anthony Foley said today: “This is an ongoing rolling document, so it’s already obsolete. We sit around, we talk about our players and their performance on a given date. We try to point out players’ strengths and weaknesses. It’s something that is standard practice.

"That's only one aspect of the document, but you [a player] would wonder would you have seen this information. Once you're satisfied that it was human error, the information was accurate and the coaches could stand over it, I would accept it.

“It will never, ever happen again. It’s unfortunate that it’s out in the public domain, something that we do behind closed doors to make us better.”

CEO Garrett Fitzgerald explained that the province have taken all necessary legal steps to ensure that there would be no ongoing issues in that department.

“There was a full review of what happened and we’re completely satisfied it was a human error, and we have taken all the steps necessary to address the issue and to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

“The key thing is that it is a data protection issue and, with proper legal advice from our solicitors Ronan Daly Jermyn, we did notify the office of the Data Commissioner, as is the correct thing to do. They came back to us and confirmed that they were happy that we met all the criteria in how we managed what actually happened and what we have done with it.

“They’ve registered the letter and accepted it and they don’t intend to take any further action on it at this point in time.”

Fitzgerald continued: “For us as an organisation, confidentiality is a very serious thing in this business, a people business. We fully comply with all employment law, so we take confidentiality seriously and I suppose the focus is on us moving forward positively. We have taken all the correct legal and professional steps to handle it correctly.

“It is a simple, rolling document that is updated from time to time and the information is usually dealt with between the individual and coaching staff.”

Munster open their Guinness PRO12 campaign on Friday night in Thomond Park against Edinburgh Rugby at 7.35pm. Tickets are on sale for this game online here, from the Munster Rugby ticket offices in Musgrave Park and Thomond Park, or by calling 0818 719300.