Jerry Flannery helped Mike Sherry in long road back

Rugby players returning from long-term injury often talk about needing plenty of game time to get themselves fully match sharp but for a specialist position like hooker, there is rust to shake off on other facets of their game.

Having undergone three shoulder surgeries, Munster and Ireland’s Mike Sherry spent almost two years out of the game, the location of his injury sending him back to square one with coach and fellow hooker Jerry Flannery as far his lineout throwing was concerned.

“When I first came back in pre-season and started throwing I couldn’t believe how crap I was,” he said. “The Ireland coaches were down looking at our training one day and the hookers were in early to do a throwing session and I couldn’t even reach Fla when I was throwing to two. He was only five or six metres away and the ball was going left, right and barely reaching him, so that was a bit of an eye opener.

“But I’ve stuck with it and the more strength I’ve got back in the shoulder, the better it’s become. It was a part of my game I was very confident in and before I got injured. I was going to lineouts and almost not thinking, it was robotic. I knew my technique, had everything down, every type of throw I wanted to throw and more often than not they were working out.

“I haven’t changed my technique but this injury definitely made me go through the process of how I was throwing the ball. Beforehand, it was instinctive, I had done it so often. But Fla was brilliant with that. He never tries to changes things really, just gives you cues to work on, you know, tighten the core, hands following through, working off my knees, Swiss balls, all that kind of thing, and it eventually came back. At the start, though, it was a definite concern.

“I was able to do tackling, to take contact, but my throwing — I can’t describe how bad it was, like an under-10 throwing. It was embarrassing at times but the lads knew I was coming back from 21 months of time out, they had patience with me and I think it’s at the level it needs to be and which I was at before.

“And when something does go wrong, now I know why it went wrong.” As with every other discipline in the game, nothing in training can replicate a real-game situation and lineout throwing is no exception but Sherry is confident that despite not being fully match fit after three weeks out with a knee problem, his throwing will cope under stress if he faces Leicester off the bench.

“We had a few in-house games during pre-season and I was incredibly tired. My throwing had got to a level (in training) but it was shocking. Definitely, the more matches I played, the more able I was to slow my heart down and concentrate on the throw itself. So it does have an effect, the more you play under fatigue, the more you get used to it.”