Munster Rugby add English prop as new stars get Ireland call up

MUNSTER rugby today confirmed that former England U20 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 Premiership outfit in their Champions Cup loss to Munster at Thomond Park in January 2015.

Munster are this week preparing for their second preseason game of the week, when they take on Worcester Warriors this coming Thursday.

Director of Rugby Rassie Erasmus will name his squad to travel to Worcester on Wednesday with the game taking place at 7.30pm

The fixtures comes on the back of Friday’s scenario-based training game against Connacht at The Sportsground.  An extended squad of 28 made the journey to Galway and saw new recruits Chris Farrell, Gerbrandt Grobler and James Hart play their first action for the province.

As with preseason 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 other news, Tyler Bleyendaal and Chris Farrell were both new additions to Joe Schmidt's squad day for Ireland this week. Tyler, who is now naturalised, was joined in a one day camp by new Munster team mate and uncapped centre, Chris Farrell. The former Grenoble star is expected to start at 13 for Munster this season, a troublesome position for Ireland in recent times too.