Irish sports team Munster Rugby, which recently announced a gaming division and struck a deal with Phelan Gaming, has brought on board a new League of Legends performance director.
Jon ‘Just Jon’ Ellis (pictured right), formerly of Excel Esports, has taken on the role. In doing so, he reunites with Munster’s League of Legends head coach Josh ‘Furndog’ Furneaux (left), who previously worked with Jon at Excel.
The pair will work with Munster as it prepares to take part in the new NLC, the top tier of UK League of Legends which pits UK teams against other sides from across Northern Europe, as well as the lower-tier UKLC where Munster will be fielding an academy side.
Munster are one of five UK orgs taking part in the competition, the others being Fnatic Rising, BT Excel, MnM Gaming and Barrage Esports.
Munster produced a fun little video to announce Jon’s arrival:
Josh and Jon worked on the gaming house project at Excel and helped Excel establish a home at Twickenham Stadium. The org also recently announced Hatrixx as their new academy team mid-laner.
Jon said: “I cannot wait to work alongside an organisation as prestigious as Munster Rugby Club, and utilise their resources and experience to push esports performance to the next level.”
“It’s time to stand up and fight for the Munster badge, and make Ireland proud.”
Jon ‘Just Jon’ Ellis, Munster Rugby Gaming
Furndog added: “I’m ecstatic to have another shot at buildign a project that fully encapsulates my personal philosophy of player development and to do that alongside Jon again makes it all the more special.
“We plan to dominate the flourishing ERL ecosystem, show serious intent to succeed beyond that and perform at a high level right from the off.”
Ciaran Walsh, CEO of Munster Rugby Gaming, commented: “We are delighted to welcome Josh back to the team as our head coach whilst also welcoming Jon as our performance director.
“Josh has always talked about working with Jon on a high-performance project with values similar to those that we hold at Munster. Their ability to develop an amazing practice environment for our team is unrivalled and we look forward to building an ethos centred around elite performance for both our players and staff at Munster Rugby Gaming.”
Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.
As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.
