Springbok lock Jean Kleyn ruled out for the rest of the season
Jean Kleyn is set to miss the rest of the season after undergoing surgery on an ongoing eye issue, delivering a hammer-blow to both Munster and South Africa.
The World Cup winner picked up the injury initially against Leinster in November, and while head coach Graham Rowntree originally expected him to be out until the new year, the severity of the injury has been revealed this week in an injury update from Munster.
The injury was confirmed ahead of Munster's crunch clash with Toulon in the Investec Champions Cup at the Stade Mayol, where the reigning United Rugby Championship winners are searching for their first win in Europe this season.
Kleyn is part of what is already an eye-watering injury list at Thomond Park, with his Leinster-bound South African second-row partner RG Snyman also out with a chest/shoulder injury sustained in the World Cup final in October. Those are just two of an exhaustive list of players in absentia, although Oli Jager, Fineen Wycherley, Alex Nankivell, Niall Scannell, Peter O’Mahony, Joey Carbery and Patrick Campbell are all possibilities to play against Toulon, Munster have confirmed.
Ireland back row Jack O’Donoghue, meanwhile, will see a consultant this week to see whether he will require surgery on a knee injury or not. The two-cap international suffered the injury against Connacht on New Year's Day, a game where Munster suffered a heavy injury toll.
While Kleyn is out of the remainder of Munster's campaign, it is unclear as to whether he will be back for the Springboks for their July Tests against Ireland (who Kleyn previously represented) and beyond.
With Munster languishing in tenth in the URC and facing games against Toulon and the high-flying Northampton Saints in the 'must-win' category in the Champions Cup, being without two World Cup winning second-rows is not ideal.
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After a fairly simple Pac4, the BFs will find out a lot about themselves in September when they face the rampaging RedRoses at Twickenham in front of a record crowd. After that they will face them again in Canada in WXV1. They also have France to contend with. Will be interesting to see what Australia have to offer with Jo Yapp at the helm.
Go to commentsSuper Rugby Pacific has been better as a spectacle due to the emphasis on speeding the game up and I’d look at taking things a step further. Instead of giving teams 90 seconds to take a conversion, let’s bring that down 60 seconds. You could also look at allowing 45 seconds for a penalty goal. Maybe teams could get 20 seconds instead of 30 to form a scrum before the ref then starts the engagement process. However, this year the most pleasing change is the added competitiveness in the Trans Tasman matches. What does frustrate me is how the rugby media in Australasia allow the the whole ‘‘rugby is boring’’/’’rugby yawnion’’ narrative to take hold from from vindictive league types, the chairman of the ARL commission and News Limited Australia. Stick up for the game and shift the narrative!
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