JJ Hanrahan\u2019s departure to Northampton is desperately deflating for Irish rugby<\/p>\n
Gerry Thornley: Munster kicking themselves after talent slips through fingers<\/p>\n
Pic: JJ Hanrahan will play his rugby next season with English Premiership champions Northampton. Photograph: Dan Sheridan\/Inpho<\/p>\n
There\u2019s something that sticks in the craw about JJ Hanrahan leaving Munster for Northampton and the English Premiership. It\u2019s not just that he\u2019s a truly rare talent. Damnit, he\u2019s from Currow. He\u2019s a Kerry man, like Mick Galwey before him, and a product of Rockwell College and the Munster academy, who was such a star of the Irish Under-20s that he was nominated for the IRB World Junior Player of the Year in 2012. It shouldn\u2019t have come to this. JJ Hanrahan\u2019s departure to Northampton is desperately deflating for Irish rugby Gerry Thornley: Munster kicking themselves after talent slips through fingers Pic: JJ Hanrahan will play his rugby next season with English Premiership champions Northampton. Photograph: Dan Sheridan\/Inpho There\u2019s something that sticks in the craw about JJ Hanrahan leaving Munster for Northampton and the English […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[15888,10092,15887,5967,11513,11416,3959],"class_list":["post-79811","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ulster-rugby","tag-deflating","tag-departure","tag-hanrahans","tag-irish","tag-jj","tag-northampton","tag-rugby"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79811","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79811"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79811\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nOut of sight
\nIdeally, he should have stayed with Munster for life, like Ronan O\u2019Gara did, rather than move, like Jeremy Staunton and Barry Everitt, for a career across the water which more or less saw them out of sight and out of mind when it came to the Ireland team. Or certainly he should have stayed for a little while longer. To lose Hanrahan at 22 years of age is desperately deflating for the Munster organisation and fan base.
\nTruly talented backs such as Hanrahan don\u2019t exactly fall off trees in Munster. The closest comparison is Staunton, who was 24 when he left for Harlequins and never came back, instead having a nomadic 10-year career in the English Premiership. No disrespect to Ian Keatley, but Munster also had a certain Ronan O\u2019Gara at the time. Staunton\u2019s loss, though regrettable given he could play centre and fullback as well, wasn\u2019t as potentially damaging to his province…………… see more at :- http:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/sport\/rugby\/jj-hanrahan-s-departure-to-northampton-is-desperately-deflating-for-irish-rugby-1.2063221<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"