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Munster's Joey Carbery poised to end 60-week injury layoff
By Sam Smith
Injury-plagued Joey Carbery is set to play his first rugby for Munster in 60 weeks after he was included in their matchday 23 to play Cardiff at the Arms Park on Friday in the latest round of the Guinness PRO14. The 25-year-old out-half has had a horrible run with injuries dating back to when he was stretchered off at the Aviva Stadium during an Ireland World Cup warm-up game with Italy in August 2019.
Carbery recovered from that ankle injury to travel to the World Cup finals in Japan but he was soon in the wars again when back on provincial duty with Munster, injuring a wrist in his last appearance in January 2020 at Ulster.
While rehabbing that problem, it was decided an operation was needed to properly mend the ankle that continued to cause issues and it is only now that he is back in the mix after a near 14-month stretch in between games.
The inclusion of Carbery on the bench for the conference leaders in Wales will be viewed as a considerable boost in a campaign likely to culminate in a final against Irish rivals Leinster and a home tie in the still to be confirmed Champions Cup round of 16 restart.
Munster defeated Edinburgh away last time out and there are six changes to their XV for their latest trip to the UK. Jack O’Donoghue captains the side, joining Chris Cloete and Jack O’Sullivan in the back row.
Fineen Wycherley scrums down next to Jean Kleyn, with Kevin O’Byrne stepping into the front row in between James Cronin and John Ryan. Shane Daly returns from Ireland camp to retain his position on the left wing with Calvin Nash named on the opposite flank. Mike Haley completes the back three at full-back.
The centre partnership sees Rory Scannell lining up next to Damian de Allende and Nick McCarthy joins JJ Hanrahan at half-back. If sprung from the bench Billy Holland will move ahead of Ronan O’Gara in the all-time Munster appearances list, becoming the second most-capped player for the province with his 241st appearance in red. Paddy Patterson, meanwhile, is in line to make his Munster debut on the bench.
MUNSTER (vs Cardiff, Friday)
Mike Haley; Calvin Nash, Rory Scannell, Damian de Allende, Shane Daly; JJ Hanrahan, Nick McCarthy; James Cronin, Kevin O’Byrne, John Ryan; Jean Kleyn, Fineen Wycherley; Jack O’Donoghue (capt), Chris Cloete, Jack O’Sullivan. Reps: Niall Scannell, Liam O’Connor, Roman Salanoa, Billy Holland, Gavin Coombes, Paddy Patterson, Joey Carbery, Darren Sweetnam.
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Latest Comments
Well that sux.
Go to commentsLike I've said before about your idea (actually it might have been something to do with mine, I can't remember), I like that teams will a small sustainable league focus can gain the reward of more consistent CC involvement. I'd really like the most consistent option available.
Thing is, I think rugby can do better than footballs version. I think for instance I wanted everyone in it to think they can win it, where you're talking about the worst teams not giving up because they are so far off the pace we get really bad scoreline when that and giving up to concentrate on the league is happening together.
So I really like that you could have a way to remedy that, but personally I would want my model to not need that crutch. Some of this is the same problem that football has. I really like the landscape in both the URC and Prem, but Ireland with Leinster specifically, and France, are a problem IMO. In football this has turned CL pool stages in to simply cash cow fixtures for the also ran countries teams who just want to have a Real Madrid or ManC to lose to in their pool for that bumper revenue hit. It's always been a comp that had suffered for real interest until the knockouts as well (they might have changed it in recent years?).
You've got some great principles but I'm not sure it's going to deliver on that hard hitting impact right from the start without the best teams playing in it. I think you might need to think about the most minimal requirement/way/performance, a team needs to execute to stay in the Champions Cup as I was having some thougt about that earlier and had some theory I can't remember. First they could get entry by being a losing quarter finalist in the challenge, then putting all their eggs in the Champions pool play bucket in order to never finish last in their pool, all the while showing the same indifference to their league some show to EPCR rugby now, just to remain in champions. You extrapolate that out and is there ever likely to be more change to the champions cup that the bottom four sides rotate out each year for the 4 challenge teams? Are the leagues ever likely to have the sort of 'flux' required to see some variation? Even a good one like Englands.
I'd love to have a table at hand were you can see all the outcomes, and know how likely any of your top 12 teams are going break into Champions rubyg on th back it it are?
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