Jerry Flannery looking to add a new dimension to Munster’s attack

Munster forwards coach Jerry Flannery is looking to improve upon his sides attacking threat this season. The Limerick man has pointed out where Munster were strongest in the last campaign but knows there is scope for improvement.

“If you looked at it last year we’d a strong set piece, we’d a very strong defence and we were very competent aerially, I think that you know, against probably 90\% of teams those things were enough to get us over the line”

While nobody is doubting the huge improvements made by Munster last year, when faced with the better sides at the business end of the Pro12 and European Champions Cup, they were found wanting in terms of attacking threat.

The addition of James Hart, Chris Farrell and JJ Hanrahan to the back line coupled with the superb form of the likes of Earls, Sweetnam, Zebo, Bleyendaal and Taute last year has Munster fans hoping that the team can kick on and bring silverware to the province for the first time since 2011.

Flannery says that he has worked on integrating his forwards into the attacking side of things during pre-season in order to add another dimension to Munster’s play.

“You would have seen against Saracens, where we couldn’t just overpower the team, that we have to add a little bit more subtlety to our game and I suppose developing each players skill set so it’s not a case of running 2 or 3 phases to tee someone up to strike. We now have all of our forwards are integrated, we’ve worked an awful lot on their handling skills and their ability, their depth”

“There’s much more layers to our attack now”

While it was only a preseason game, their willingness to attack and have a cut offensively was very much in evident against Worcester Warriors last Thursday evening.