TANIA ROSSER HAS been appointed as the new Leinster Rugby Women’s head coach.

Rosser, who was previously the team’s assistant coach under Philip Doyle and was most recently the head coach of Clontarf’s J1 side, takes over from Phil de Barra.

The New Zealand-born 43-year-old spent 10 years with Leinster as a player as well as winning 58 Ireland caps and representing the country at three Rugby World Cups.

“I’m really excited,” she said. “It’s a huge honour and privilege to be here to coach the Leinster Women’s team.

“I played for many years for them so I know how important it is for the development of the girls and I’m just super excited and can’t wait to get started.”

Philip Lawlor, the head of Leinster’s rugby department, said: “We believe that Tania’s knowledge, experience and character will add greatly to what has gone before and we would like to thank Phil de Barra and Ben Armstrong and their teams for all their work during the three previous playing seasons and in particular over the last 20 months, which was a hugely challenging period for rugby in the country.

“We are now looking forward to working with Tania to ensure we remain at the top of Irish women’s rugby in producing players for the national 15s and 7s sides and competing for the interprovincial title.”