Flannery: We must forget about our Grand Slam when facing Wallabies

Munster’s Jerry Flannery has said the Ireland team has to forget what they have achieved this year when they tackle the southern hemisphere giants of Australia and South Africa in the November internationals.

The Ireland hooker was commenting that the expectation levels this year are so much higher than last year because of their recent run of results.

Flannery said: “It’s important that we realise that (the recent results) are shelved, nothing counts now and we have got to start again.”

Emphasising the hard work being done, they have had four Ireland camps this season alone, Flannery focused on the coaching staff of Gert Smal, Alan Gaffney and head coach Declan Kidney.

“The coaching staff have done an awful lot of analysis on how we can improve as a team, adding some finer details.

“There was a lot of hard work to get us to a certain point last year and you can’t take that for granted. If you can add the last two or three per cent of detail that really opens up teams, that’s how you progress as a team.

“We start from scratch again.”

Listen to more as Flannery speaks to Breakingnews.ie chief sports reporter Shaun Cronin and the assembled media about the mix on the Irish bench, having Sean Cronin as his understudy and the quality of Keith Earls.