JERRY FLANNERY repeatedly stated his intention to move on. To leave the game he loves well alone. Only problem was, the other day, something needed collecting so he crept back into the bosom of Munster rugby.

Barely a step inside the door, Axel Foley spied him. “I thought you weren’t going to be one of those sad players . . .”

“Ah, for f***’s sake.”

Suddenly, the sunlight was blotted out. A solar eclipse? No.

“Aw, here he is,” said a smiling Paulie O’Connell. Flannery was out the door and away.

“They were like, ‘with your tail between your legs’. I kinda copped it then. It is hard to completely . . . I was trying to make the point (at his official retirement) that I was going to move on with it now. Very happy with the lot I had playing rugby. Rather than hanging on but I ended up making life really hard for myself.”

Hard he can do. It’s the mounds of affection shovelled his way that “melted” him. Because no one ever lets the game go, it lets you go. It moves on. “My lifestyle now is I get up early about half six and I go in and I train before college. Then I start college and I’ve college for the day until around six. I still see the lads. If I go up for food, I’ll meet the lads.”

The lads that became the second best team in Ireland when Leinster savaged them in the 2009 Heineken Cup semi-final. If they are undone in Thomond Park this Sunday lunch-time, enough evidence will be at hand to brand them the third best team.

Flannery, in Dublin yesterday as a Guinness rugby ambassador, was asked out straight: Ferris or not, can Ulster win in Limerick? “Ulster can definitely win, yeah. But I would back us. I think Munster will be favourites, particularly because we are at home, but Ulster have the wherewithal to come down and win. I’ve played against Ulster in Thomond Park before and lost.

“It’s hard as a Munster player to try and imagine that something is a mental barrier for other teams because that makes you inherently a little bit weaker. Makes you feel like you don’t have to try as hard. But I think that Ulster don’t have that issue coming down to Thomond Park.

“It is not like a freak that they have managed to get here. They have been generally improving over the last couple of years.

“They’ll be looking, much like Leinster had against us in 2009, for that win that can kick you on and suddenly people start really believing what they are doing.”

The best man to replace Tony McGahan is Foley, right? “He’s either ready for the job or he’s not. I don’t know whether there are skills Axel has to develop. He’s always been up there for me. Captain when I came into first year (in St Munchin’s). Then he was captain of Shannon, captain of Munster and captain of Ireland as well. And now he is coaching Munster. I’d love to see him make the step up. I know the measure of Axel.”