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Fresh injury setback could signal end of McFadden's Leinster career
By Ciarán Kennedy
Fergus McFadden's Leinster career could be over after the province confirmed the Ireland international has suffered another injury setback. A squad update issued by Leinster today announced that McFadden will be unavailable for up to six weeks after sustaining a calf injury.
It's a cruel blow which could signal the end of McFadden's Leinster career given the timeframes involved.
The province are due to play their rescheduled Champions Cup quarter-final against Saracens in just under five weeks time, on September 19.
McFadden now faces a serious race to be fit for that game, and even if he does win that battle the competition for places in the Leinster team represents another hurdle.
The Champions Cup semi-finals are pencilled in for the weekend after the Saracens game, with the final taking place the weekend of October 17/18.
The Leinster veteran's last Champions Cup appearance came in the 2018 semi-final win against Scarlets, where he was injured in the process of scoring a first-half try.
The 34-year-old recently postponed his decision to retire in order to see out the remainder of the suspended 2019/20 season with Leinster.
He has represented the province 184 times since making his debut in 2007, scoring 444 points.
Meanwhile, Leinster have also confirmed that prop Vakh Abdaladze and centre Conor O’Brien will be unavailable for Saturday's Pro14 derby against Munster at the Aviva Stadium.
Abdaladze is due to have a procedure this week on a long-standing back issue, while O'Brien is expected to be unavailable for a number of months following surgery on a hamstring issue.
Peter Dooley is in line to return to training this week following a shoulder problem, while Dan Leavy will progress his gradual exposure to rugby training this week as he recovers from a serious knee injury.
There was no update provided on either Adam Byrne (hamstring) or James Ryan (shoulder).
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Latest Comments
Nah, that just needs some more variation. Chip kicks, grubber stabs, all those. Will Jordan showed a pretty good reason why the rush was bad for his link up with BB.
If you have an overlap on a rush defense, they naturally cover out and out and leave a huge gap near the ruck.
It also helps if both teams play the same rules. ARs set the offside line 1m past where the last mans feet were😅
Go to commentsYeah nar, should work for sure. I was just asking why would you do it that way?
It could be achieved by outsourcing all your IP and players to New Zealand, Japan, and America, with a big Super competition between those countries raking it in with all of Australia's best talent to help them at a club level. When there is enough of a following and players coming through internally, and from other international countries (starting out like Australia/without a pro scene), for these high profile clubs to compete without a heavy australian base, then RA could use all the money they'd saved over the decades to turn things around at home and fund 4 super sides of their own that would be good enough to compete.
That sounds like a great model to reset the game in Aus. Take a couple of decades to invest in youth and community networks before trying to become professional again. I just suggest most aussies would be a bit more optimistic they can make it work without the two decades without any pro club rugby bit.
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