Axel Foley has confirmed his desire to keep JJ Hanrahan at Munster next season.

Rumours have been circulating that Munster fly-half JJ Hanrahan could be close to leaving Limerick for Aviva Premiership outfit Northampton Saints. The 22-year-old is reportedly frustrated at being out of favour at the club and constantly being played out of his preferred position of number 10. The Kerry native has just over six months left on his current contract and it is believed that Northampton have offered the young gun a considerably improved wage packet to join their club. According to Anthony Foley, keeping Hanrahan as a Munster player next season is a major priority of his.

From my own experience as a player you do get your head turned at times. It is important that we all understand that and we put our best case forward for him to stay. At the moment, it's something that happens in professional sport, so we have to deal with that. Everybody who has seen JJ play understands the quality of player he is and why other teams would be going after him. It is the same reason why we want to keep him as well. A lot of the conversations around whats best for JJ to develop as a rugby player.

Foley hinted at being wary of the Saints' offer but affirmed that the club are doing everything in their power to re-sign.

From what I gather it's speculation at the moment. JJ's contract is up at the end of the season. Munster have offered JJ a contract. Obviously with a guy like that coming off contract does line up a number of suitors. I've spoken to JJ on a number of occasions and obviously anything we speak about stays between us. It's about the whole picture with JJ, making sure, he's a quality player. He is a player we have used on a number of occasions this year.

Hanrahan has struggled to break into Foley's plans this season, and when he has made an appearance it has been at number 12 rather than at out-half. Foley cites Hanrahan's recurring osteitis pubis as the reason why he has yet to nail down a place in the Munster starting XV.

In pre-season, we spoke about his delayed return to play because we wanted to get his groins right and make sure that he was fully fit so that he could progress as a player, rather than just maintaining the status quo of where he was – play, deload, make sure he was right to play again, with no training and no physical development to get better..

Foley is hopeful that Hanrahan stay with the province and confessed he will not be looking for potential replacements until the situation requires it.

That is something you would like to get done and dusted as quickly as possible and haev the information if we need to look for another player in that position or extend a lads contract. It's about managing the situation and hopefully putting a time frame on it. I don't think there is one at the moment.

Hat-tip to Cillian O Conchuir