Gary O’Flaherty who makes his 20th appearance for Munster at the Interprovincial Championships. Picture: Niall O’Shea

It’s 22 years since Gary O’Flaherty made his Munster debut, as a 17 year old he was thrown into a cauldron dominated by career long elite amateurs.  And O’Flaherty survived.  Now making his 20^th appearance on the Munster team, Gary is looking for his sixth win in Blue.  Back in 1996 he pitched up at Mount Juliet for his first outing as Munster tried to retain their title.  Munster did just that, and went to Ballybunion a year later to help Munster win the three in a row.  It was a big event for O’Flaherty, there was no under 16 or under 18 interpro’s back then and he was teeing it up with the elite amateurs from across the country.  “I was in awe of the guys there that week” said Gary when recalling that week.  “I played two singles matches and won both against Colin McElderry and Kevin Flanagan.  I remember watching Eddie Power and Dennis O’Sullivan play, and I tried to copy their games.  Not the longest hitters, but very straight and did very little wrong.  I played foursomes the following year in Ballybunion with Tom Cleary and we won 5.5 out of 6 points.”  O’Flaherty had two caps to his name, along with two wins.  As the years went on, there was not matching the two from two success rate and it would be Continue reading →