Since the injury enforced retire­ment of Jerry Flan­nery in 2011, it is fair to say hooker has been something of a prob­lem pos­i­tion for Mun­ster.

At his peak in the mid-to-late 2000s, Flan­nery had a fair claim on being the best hooker in the world. Relent­less workrate, power in the scrum, pun­ish­ing ball car­ries and a level of accur­acy with his throw­ing that helped to make Ire­land’s lin­eout one of the most effi­cient in the game — Flan­nery was the full pack­age.

There were a lot of good hook­ers on the cir­cuit at the time, from John Smit, Bis­marck du Plessis from South Africa, Keven Meal­amu from New Zea­l­and, Aus­tralia’s Stephen Moore and Dimitri Szar­zewski of France, but Flan­nery was right up there.

He was car­ry­ing on a rich Mun­ster leg­acy, the province hav­ing pro­duced some excep­tional hook­ers over the years.

From Pat ‘Pa’ Whelan to Ire­land cap­tains Terry King­ston and Keith Wood and onto Frankie Shee­han and Flan­nery, Mun­ster were well served in the No2 jer­sey from the 1970s right through to the 2010s.

Whelan had a lock on the Ire­land No2 jer­sey in the late 1970s, the Garry­owen man gain­ing a repu­ta­tion for innate tough­ness that stood him and whatever team he played for well — not least when part of an inspir­a­tional Mun­ster per­form­ance in their 12-0 win over the All Blacks in 1978.

Dolphin man King­ston was cut from the same cloth and his qual­ity was quickly recog­nised by Ire­land, with King­ston play­ing in three World Cups between 1987 and 1995 (when he was cap­tain) as well as lead­ing Mun­ster to a fam­ous win over the world cham­pion Walla­bies in Cork in 1992.

Wood, the first player to be hon­oured with the world player of the year award in 2001, is regarded as one of the best hook­ers to have ever played the game, with Shee­han an elite under­study for province and coun­try.

And, even then, in the post-Flan­nery era from 2011 to the present day, it was not as if Mun­ster had ter­rible hooker options to choose from. The likes of Declan Var­ley, Mike Sherry, Duncan Casey, Niall Scan­nell, Kevin O’Byrne, Rhys Mar­shall and Diar­muid Bar­ron are all decent oper­at­ors and picked up some caps here and there — it was just that they were not at the level that had gone before and not at a level to con­sist­ently nail down a spot in the Ire­land team.

Over the last 15 years, the Ire­land hooker spot has been shared between Ulster (Rory Best and Rob Her­ring) and Lein­ster (Richardt Strauss, Ronan Kelle­her and Dan Shee­han) with Con­nacht’s Dave Hef­fernan offer­ing back up as needed.

The Mun­ster lads play­ing hooker have not really figured, hence the ‘prob­lem pos­i­tion’ tag. It is why the province chased former Walla­bies cap­tain Stephen Moore so hard around 2015 and were so frus­trated when the move fell through.

But now, even though we are only three games into the sea­son, there is com­pel­ling evid­ence that Mun­ster have finally found a solu­tion to their hooker prob­lem and have found a player cap­able of liv­ing up to the leg­acy of Flan­nery and those who went before.

When it was announced earlier this year that Mun­ster had recruited 29-year-old Marnus van der Merwe from fel­low URC club Scar­lets, it was not exactly head­line news.

A solid sign­ing, was the gen­eral con­sensus among pun­dits and sup­port­ers but, in truth, that was something of a kick to touch because not a whole lot was known about the former Free State Chee­tahs No2 bey­ond the fact he was well regarded in the off-Broad­way environs of Llan­elli in south Wales.

There are cer­tain assump­tions you make when it comes to South African front rows — they will be big, phys­ical and hard work­ing and will excel at the set-piece.

Van der Merwe ticks all those boxes. Like Flan­nery, his scrum­ma­ging and lin­eout throw­ing are top-notch, and he is always look­ing for work on the pitch. What has exceeded expect­a­tions is the South African’s abil­ity around the park.

For a man of his size (6ft2in, 18.5st), the former Scar­lets man is very mobile and his rugby is evid­ent in his angles of run­ning and abil­ity to trans­port him­self to the place where he is most needed in the fast­est pos­sible time.

But it is the work of the three­times-capped Spring­bok at the break­down that has been most arrest­ing. Van der Merwe’s com­bin­a­tion of speed, tim­ing, wide stance style and supreme upper body strength makes him a fero­cious pro­spect for the oppos­i­tion when the battle for pos­ses­sion com­mences on the ground.

The Mun­ster oper­a­tion has received its share of jus­ti­fied cri­ti­cism in recent times, not least for its poor recruit­ment, with ex-play­ers queuing up to ques­tion some ‘dud’ sign­ings.

But they look to have got it very right with Marnus van der Merwe and in a pos­i­tion that for years was notice­ably lack­ing in sparkle, Mun­ster have got them­selves a gem.