Amorosino And Doyle To Link Up With Munster This Week
With injuries to back rowers Peter O’Mahony and Tommy O’Donnell and Felix Jones’ enforced retirement, Munster head coach Anthony Foley has spoken about new signings Lucas Gonzalez Amorosino and Sean Doyle, and the pair’s inclusion in the province’s 2015/16 Champions Cup squad.
Argentinian international Lucas Gonzalez Amorosino and Australian-born Sean Doyle have both signed three-month contracts with Munster Rugby and will link up with the squad this week.
Commenting on the signings and the process behind them, Anthony Foley said: “With the injuries that occurred within the squad we needed to bring in quality players from overseas that can play with us for a period. We would previously had to announce 38 players in a European squad and this year we’ve had to announce 41.
“We already had five Academy players in the squad and in order to balance that up, with the likes of Peter O’Mahony and Felix Jones missing out, we needed to look elsewhere.
“Fortunately enough we found Lucas and Sean. It’s hard during this period, within a six-day timeframe, to get players of quality, and a lot of hard work was done in the background through (CEO) Garrett Fitzgerald, (team manager) Niall O’Donovan and all the coaches to get players of a standard where we can be competitive on both fronts.”
The Munster head coach went on to explain that last week’s signings were delivered in consultation with the IRFU’s Performance Director David Nucifora.
“We spoke to David and the first thing we did was search to see what was available within Ireland. However, once you play competitively for one province in a season, you can’t transfer across to another and each province had their own 41-player panels to submit, so it became clearly evident early on that we needed to look abroad,” admitted Foley.
The 29-year-old Amorosino most recently featured for Argentina in last Friday’s Rugby World Cup bronze final defeat to South Africa. He lined out for Cardiff Blues in the GUINNESS PRO12 last season.
Flanker Doyle, who is 26, joins from Super Rugby outfit the Brumbies having previously played for Ulster, making 24 appearances for the province.