Ospreys Rugby are delighted to announce the signing of former South Africa tight head prop, Brian Mujati, on a short term contract.
- 32-year old signs until the end of the season to provide injury cover with Ospreys tight heads, Dmitri Arhip and Ma'afu Fia out of action and Rhodri Jones currently part of Rob Howley's Wales squad and potentially unavailable over the next month
- Capped 12 times for South Africa, Mujati has played in Super Rugby with Lions and Stormers, in T14 in France with Racing Metro, and Aviva Premiership with Northampton Saints and Sale Sharks
- While at Northampton was a losing Heineken Cup and Premiership finalist, and an LV= Cup winner
- Will link up with the Ospreys at Llandarcy Academy of Sport on Monday and is available to play against Munster at the Liberty Stadium on Saturday
Mujati will provide much needed injury cover in the absence of Dmitri Arhip and Ma’afu Fia, and will report for duty at Llandarcy Academy of Sport for the first time on Monday morning.
Born in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, the 32-year old is renowned as a powerful and destructive scrummager, and brings with him a wealth of top level experience across both hemispheres, with Lions and Stormers in Super Rugby, Northampton Saints, Racing Metro and, most recently, Sale Sharks.
Ospreys Head Coach, Steve Tandy, said he is expecting Mujati to make a big impact:
“This is an important signing for us given the injury situation with Dmitri and Ma’afu. Our performances this season have put us in a really strong position but we still have eight PRO12 games to go, and a Challenge Cup quarter-final in April.
“In Rhodri Jones and Daniel Suter we have two young men who will be heavily involved but we can’t go through such a big run of games with only two fit pro tight heads on our books, particularly with Rhodri still a part of the current Six Nations squad and potentially away on Wales duty throughout the rest of this immediate block of games. It’s a critical position and we felt that we had to act now.
“Brian has proven quality at the top level and will add so much experience to the squad, particularly over the coming weeks when we are missing our international players and carrying so many injuries.
“He’s extremely thorough and professional in his approach, has shown what he can do against the very best in the north and the south, and with so many big games coming up we expect him to hit the ground running this week and really add something to our environment, on and off the field. If we are going to achieve our aims this season then everybody in the squad is going to need to pull together and deliver over the coming weeks.”
Mujati’s first Springbok cap came in June 2008, when he started for South Africa in a 43-17 win over Wales in Bloemfontein. He won a total of 12 caps that year, also featuring in a 20-15 defeat of Wales at the Millennium Stadium, before opting to move north the following year, signing for Northampton Saints in 2009.
He played more than 100 times for the Saints, winning the LV= Cup in his first season. He was on the losing side against Leinster in the 2011 Heineken Cup Final, one of the all-time great matches in that competition, and two years later he tasted defeat once again when Leicester beat Northampton at Twickenham in the Aviva Premiership Final.
Moving to Racing Metro in the summer of 2013, he played 55 times for the big spending Parisians, before returning to England in 2015 to sign for Sale, for whom he turned out 35 times over the last season and a half, the last appearance coming against Harlequins last weekend.
