‘As a coach there has to be boundaries’

The 41 times capped Ireland hooker, who won the 2006 and 2008 Heineken Cups with his native province and the 2009 Six Nations Grand Slam with Ireland, hung up his boots in 2012 after years dogged with persistent injuries.

After his playing days ended, he didn’t exactly hang around feeling sorry for himself.

Diving head-first into media work with TG4 and Joe.ie, he also began a masters in sports performance at the University of Limerick. He soon found himself in a completely new environment working as a strength and conditioning coach with Arsenal’s academy.

Now back with Munster as part of a five-strong indigenous coaching panel alongside Anthony Foley, Brian Walsh, Ian Costello and Mick O’Driscoll, the Limerick man — still only 35 — says familiarity with the set-up has helped him settle in as he takes responsibility for the province’s scrummaging.

“I wasn’t sure what to expect, but it was helpful knowing Axel so well, and I’m friends with Micko, Cozzie and Squeaks already, I’d meet them regularly last year when I was covering games,” he says.

“There’s a familiarity about the core beliefs Axel holds; he’s been the same from school, to Shannon, to Munster and Ireland and now to coaching.

“It’s what Munster rugby is all about; it’s not a star culture, it’s hard work and having the majority of lads playing for Munster from Munster. There’s such a strong bond between the province and its supporters, and you want to make sure that never gets diluted.

“It wasn’t like I was going to Toulouse, wondering what the vibe might be.

“Here, there’s a certain responsibility to perform. It wrecks all our friends and families’ week if we lose at the weekend, if we win it lifts them. You see the likes of Clermont and Toulon being able to buy up so many players, but the reason the Irish provinces can compete is because the lads growing up here want to play for them.”

Much has already been made of the decision by Munster — who begin their Guinness Pro12 campaign against Edinburgh tonight — to appoint a team of local boys who are light on experience, but Flannery naturally likes what he sees in terms of the Irish coaching talent coming through.

“Well, I can’t exactly say it’s refreshing to see me involved!” he laughs. “But you have Leo Cullen going in with Leinster, Neil Doak progressing with Ulster, Dan McFarland with Connacht — we are producing our own coaches and that’s important.

“At times you bring in foreign coaches because they’re better — look how much Joe Schmidt brought to Leinster and Ireland, good habits trickle down and everyone picks up on them. But from Munster’s point of view, Axel has always been there, he could have got the job a couple of years ago too.

“He has some really strong ideas on how the game should be played and what the culture of Munster is about, and we can’t wait to see what he’s going to bring to it.”

As the youngest of the new group and one who had soldiered with the majority of the current squad as a player, Flannery’s new role presents an unique challenge for one of Irish rugby’s biggest characters.

Paul O’Connell has spoken of “trying to keep a straight face at times” while his former front-five colleague barks the orders and Flannery admits it’s a factor in his coaching style.

“I’m conscious of managing those relationships with guys I used to play with. I only left two years ago and my default as a player was to be quite chatty. I can’t deny that’s who I am when I’m in a group, but, as a coach, there has to be boundaries,” he explains.

“They hear a lot less from me than they used to. But you also can’t come in and pretend you’re a different person after being away for two years and blank people when you walk past them; it seems false if your behaviour is completely different.

“I have to be as prepared as I can be, and be very measured with what I say.

“A player can make three or four mistakes but if he eventually gets it right on the pitch, he’s okay. A coach can’t throw something out then correct himself over and over, or he dilutes his effectiveness. I try to ingrain good habits and processes so the players can self-correct, because I won’t be holding anyone’s hand during a game.

“As a young coach, initially when you learn something, you’re like ‘I want to let these guys know how much I know’ but after a while you realise I’m better off letting them do the drill and make the mistake. Then when you drop in a single coaching cue and there’s an improvement, they really buy into it.”

Flannery: The going was tough at Arsenal

By Alan Good

Jerry Flannery admits he had to work harder to earn respect as an academy coach at Arsenal — because the players hadn’t heard of him.

Flannery spent a year working with the Barclays Premier League side, a work placement which came about thanks to his connections to Des Ryan, a former coach with Connacht and the IRFU and now the London club’s head of sports science.

“If I was to present to a group of academy players in rugby, I’d have a window of grace because some would know me from when I played. But, at Arsenal, I’d to be on the money from the start,” he explains. “The players are harder (to deal with), they’re younger and emotionally not as mature, but they are great guys and my respect for football is through the roof.

“I would have had a perception of these kids coasting by on pure talent with no real graft, earning loads of money but it’s not like that, it’s tough. If you get released from pro rugby, you generally left school at 18, have a degree or a diploma and some idea of the real world. But in football, you’ve left school at 15, all anyone has done is pump your tyres and tell you you’re an incredible player and you go to a club where the top players earn loads of money, your perception of reality is very off. They only take the top 0.5% (into the pro ranks) so a lot of those players end up thrown on a scrapheap.”