Munster Add Young Prop Parker To Forward Ranks
In what is the final week of pre-season, the Munster squad travel to face Worcester Warriors at Sixways Stadium on Thursday ahead of their return to competitive action in Cork next week.
The province’s director of rugby Rassie Erasmus will name his squad to travel to Worcester on Wednesday with the game taking place at 7.30pm on Thursday. There will be live updates on the Munster Rugby Twitter page.
The fixtures comes on the back of last Friday’s scenario-based training game against Connacht at the Sportsground. An extended squad of 28 players made the journey to Galway and saw new recruits Chris Farrell, Gerbrandt Grobler and James Hart don Munster colours for the first time.
As with pre-season to date, a number of club players were also involved with Max McFarland (Clontarf), Tom Ryan (Dublin University), James Rochford (Dolphin) and sub-Academy player Ronan Coffey (Shannon) all included.
In what will be a busy week for both players and management, Erasmus and the returning CJ Stander will attend the GUINNESS PRO14 launch in Dublin on Wednesday. Following the return of squad captain Peter O’Mahony last week, Munster’s other 2017 Lions, Stander and Conor Murray, will commence their pre-season programmes this week.
In contract news, the province can today confirm that former England Under-20 prop Ciaran Parker will join the province on a one-year development contract. The 21-year-old makes the move from Sale Sharks and lined out for the English side in their Champions Cup loss to Munster at Thomond Park in January 2015.
On the injury front, Sam Arnold (calf), Duncan Casey and Kevin O’Byrne (both groin) are being managed for respective injuries picked up in pre-season. Conor Oliver (shoulder) will meet with a specialist again this week.
Robin Copeland and JJ Hanrahan (both shoulder) continue to take part in modified training with Ronan O’Mahony (fibula), Dave O’Callaghan (knee) and Darren O’Shea (shoulder) following their longer-term programmes.