Rob Penney: Player limit is just too restrictive

Munster coach Rob Penney believes clubs should be allowed larger squads to participate in the Heineken Cup.

The current limit of players for the opening rounds is too restrictive, according to Penney who highlighted the fact that the list had to include 10 front-row forwards. He also expressed disappointment that good homegrown players were being denied an opportunity to compete at the highest level.

“I don’t know how other people feel about it, but it would be great to expand that. You’ve got to take 10 front rowers and for six games, you often won’t use anywhere near 10 and then you’ve only got 26 positions to be able to make up the rest of your squad. Some teams who would struggle to fill that wouldn’t care, but when you’re trying to build depth and breadth for this Munster team who’ve got a great cohort of young men whose age profile is really great; we would love to access all of them through the ERC programme.”