Kyriacou wants Muster pack to rediscover 'fear factor'

Andi Kyriacou only spent one season at Munster as a player, but it made a lasting impact.

It wouldn't have been hard to be sucked in by Munster at that time. The province's new forwards coach was just 23 years old when he was recruited on a season-long loan from Saracens back in 2006.

When the hooker arrived, it was off the back of Munster's Heineken Cup breakthrough. Competing with Jerry Flannery, Denis Fogarty and Frankie Sheahan at hooker, and sharing a pack with the likes of John Hayes, Paul O'Connell, Donncha O'Callaghan, David Wallace and Anthony Foley, Kyriacou quickly learned about the standards that needed to be met.

"One thing that immediately hit me was the accountability from the players and how tough they were on each other in training, not accepting things that may have been accepted in the place I was at," he said, looking back on his time at the province.

"It was just a phenomenal learning experience. I got a lot of opportunities which is always great. I made life-long friends, it's been great to come back and reconnect with people straight away, lads who are still in the game and the lads who have left the game.

"It is a great place. I had a great year when I was over here. I remember getting the opportunity, I had literally just moved into my new house down in London with my wife when the opportunity came up so I said 'see you later', and off we went."

A native of England, Kyriacou had been Irish qualified from birth, and after returning to Saracens following his Munster loan, he came back to Ireland in 2009 where he spent three seasons at Ulster, playing more than 50 times in total.

Having moved to Cardiff in the summer of 2012, a back injury saw him forced into retirement a year later at the age of just 30,