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20 Jan 2026
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Jerry Flannery is joining the Springboks backroom team
LIMERICK man Jerry Flannery is joining the Springboks' backroom team as an assistant coach.
It was confirmed this Tuesday that former Munster Rugby and Ireland hooker is to take up the role of defence coach with the back-to-back wrold champions.
Flannery will depart his current coaching role with English Premiership side, Harlequins, this month to take up a coaching role with the South African national team.
Flannery will depart for the Springboks following the high-profile friendly match at The Stoop on Friday, February 23 as 'Quins take on his former side Munster Rugby.
Former Shannon hooker Flannery who joined 'Quins in 2020 has been a key part of the coaching team that won the Gallagher Premiership title in 2021 and now stand second in the Premiership.
Flannery said: “I have loved my time at Harlequins working alongside a talented young group of coaches and players. The opportunity to move into international rugby and to work alongside Rassie Erasmus again after our time at Munster was very appealing and I would like to thank Harlequins for supporting my desire to take up this opportunity to develop my career.
"I look forward to the next few weeks with Harlequins and a final home match at a sold-out Stoop in February."
The dynamic front-rower played 93 times for Munster, completed five seasons on Munster's coaching ticket. Flannery won Heineken Cup medals with Munster in 2006 and 2008.
Forty five-year-old Flannery retired from playing in 2012 after an impressive career with Connacht and Munster, including winning 41 caps for his national side between 2005 and 2011.
After hanging up his playing boots, Flannery turned his hand to coaching, first as a strength and conditioning coach with Premier League football team Arsenal from 2013-14 before being recruited as Munster’s scrum coach by the late Anthony Foley in 2014, going on to become the Irish province’s forwards coach in 2017 before leaving his former club in 2020.
Former Munster Rugby head coach Rassie Erasmus has returned to the role of South Africa's head coach for the next four years, following the departure of Jacques Nienaber to Leinster.
Erasmus, who coached the team in 2019 and was Director of Rugby four years later, will lead a modified coaching team in the absence of Nienaber and attack coach Felix Jones, who has left to join England.
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