Jerry Flannery’s Springboks defence will look to keep Ireland quiet this weekend.
Murray Kinsella Reports from Pretoria WE’RE STANDING IN the Springboks ’ private area of the Southern Sun hotel in Pretoria , getting tips for places to eat from the local journalists, when a familiar face emerges from one of the team rooms.
It wasn’t always certain that Flannery was going to be a rugby coach. When he was forced to retire from playing in 2012, he took on a Master’s degree in sports performance, then joined English football coach Arsenal as a strength and conditioning coach. “Then in the airport on the way home, after two or three days in Ibiza, he has his laptop out reviewing all of Munster’s scrums from the previous year.
Having begun to master the scrum coaching craft, Flannery was back in the deep end to learn the intricacies of lineouts and mauls. Advertisement Holland laughs as he recalls how Flannery would physically get involved in training, getting stuck into the breakdown and jumping on mauls, living every moment of it.
“Fla and Felix are the blueprint for the Munster way,” says Stafford, who is now living in Sydney and playing for Manly in the Shute Shield. “Jerry would epitomise the Munster values, that intensity and work-rate.” Flannery decided to leave Munster in 2019 along with Jones despite the pair of them being offered new contracts and after a season out of the game, he was drawn back in.
“He’s incredibly intense,” says Wexford man Stafford. “He’s a guy who would never really switch off, he’s always 100%. When Gustard left Quins in 2021, Flannery’s role expanded to take in the defence. It was a fairly seamless transition.“There was massive detail but he’d deliver it in short, sharp meetings. His individual feedback as a player was great, he’d constantly be on your case. It would be tiny, minute changes to help you. That transition wasn’t massive because of the nature of the coach he is. He is so meticulous in what he does.
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