Munster forwards coach Jerry Flannery says his side's pre-season preparations were not affected by news that director of rugby Rassie Erasmus and defence coach Jacques Nienaber would be leaving to return to South Africa.
The Irish province's PRO14 campaign begins with a clash against Treviso in Cork on Friday. The Irish outfit reached last season’s PRO12 final despite the sudden death of former head coach Anthony Foley.
Flannery had been promoted from scrum to forwards coach and his former Munster team-mate Felix Jones has added responsibilities as a back-line and attack coach after a debut season as a technical coach.
Flannery said he was worried pre-season training would be affected by the sudden coaching changes.
“It was weird with the announcement at the start, but it in no way has it affected our rugby,” he told the Irish Examiner.
“Our main concern was that we felt we put down a good season last year and the main thing for us is to get consistency and continuity, year-on-year-on-year.
“Felix put an awful lot of work into our attack game in the off-season and you were worried then when Rassie and Jacques were leaving, is there someone else going to come in straight away, is that work down the drain, but from a rugby point of view, it has been incredibly positive.
"We have consolidated the good things that we did last year. We have looked where we can make a step up and we have been layering that in and developing the players’ skill-sets so that we can play a little bit more of an expansive game when necessary when it is on.
“We are not getting it 100% right, we are far from that, but I can see that we are creating opportunities and we are able to execute things that we weren’t doing last year.”
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