A frustrating year on the pitch for Ireland has been a frustrating year off the pitch for Munster hooker Jerry Flannery, who is set to return to training on Monday. Jerry is upbeat and energetic as he prepares to return after a 2010 blighted by suspension and injury.
“I want to try and play as soon as I can and get some rugby under my belt. It’s frustrating but I’ve been injured for so long now I have to bite the bullet and just say stop picking a certain game to come back for and make sure that the injury is 100% cleared up. The first time you actually get to go back and train with the squad is such a lift, you feel ‘I’m out of this isolation’”
Isolation, thy name is rehab, for Jerry who has just dedicated four weeks to running. “I’ve been clocking up the miles running with Dr Gareth Coughlan, a 5,000metre runner. He’s putting me through my paces trying to get me to work my calf in different ways. I’ve been doing the stamina thing, building up the endurance in the calf”.
The calf, has been the primary source of frustration for Flannery in a stop-start year. “When it first happened I thought, this is a calf injury it’s a simple enough thing… There have been so many diagnoses and so many different courses of treatment. I’ve finished one – it won’t work. I’ll go back and try a different one and it actually contradicts the one I just did. It can be very confusing”.
He is now hopeful he has found the key to full recovery. “Looking at how I’ve broken down it’s not that I can’t get up to 100% intensity, I can. But, the calf tends to break down then when the intensity isn’t that high, it’s more of an endurance thing”. It seems that the injury is as testing for Jerry psychologically as physically. “Mentally it’s very hard watching games when you’re injured. There’s two ways of looking at it. You want the team to win; without doubt you want to be part of a winning team, but you don’t want the guy in your position to play awesome. You really want to be out there playing instead”.
Captain Paul O’Connell returned against Cardiff last weekend and Jerry was thankful for his support while injured. “Paul’s injury has been a bit like mine in that no one ever came to him from day one and said this is probably going to be a six month injury. What happens then is someone keeps moving the finishing line, you think you’re over it and it’s just so frustrating. When I broke down after the Toulon game I was devastated and you feel like everything is slipping away because you have no perspective, it seems like a vicious circle. Paul said to me he had spent the first part of the season injured in 2006 and 2008; both years we won the Heineken Cup. He said he just trained really hard and kept disciplined and when it does come right for you there’s still a lot of rugby to play”.
At 32, Flannery is conscious that time is not on his side. “The way I look at it now, when you’re in thirties every month you’re not playing gives someone else a chance to stake their claim”.
However he was extremely encouraged by the victory of the fresh Munster stock against Australia. “The performance against Australia was incredible, it bodes well for the future. Ian Nagle was outstanding and Peter O’Mahony had a great game. It goes back to my other point, you just want to be playing, you feel like the longer you’re out the more fellas are getting a chance”.
He is extremely impressed by the strength emerging in Munster squad. “At the moment there’s a group of players coming through that are hitting the right age. They’re like sponges; soaking up the information. You can see these guys improving week in week out. Sometimes they don’t realise how good they are until they go out and get a chance to pit themselves. Like the Australian game they’ll come on so much from it, it’s good for Munster”.
On the International front he felt that his team mates received an unfair amount of criticism. “I suppose I’m being a bit biased because I know how good the players in there can be. As it went on i found it very, very frustrating the amount of negativity towards the team. It’s very easy to kick people when it’s not going well for them – I was delighted with how they showed glimpses of how good they can be in the New Zealand game. They carried it on and got a good result against a strong Argentinian team”.
With the World Cup on the horizon Flannery has his feet firmly on the ground. “My first obstacle is getting back and getting fit and just concentrating on Munster. There’s going to be an awful lot of competition for me when I get back, Damien Varley’s done well when he’s been there and Sean Henry and Michael Sherry have both come in as well and the team is winning…
I need to go out and perform well for Munster and if I can perform well for Munster things will happen for me from there. For me the World Cup is there but I need to get back and play rugby”.
