Carbery hamstring injury ‘a big concern’ for Munster
Johann van Graan has admitted Joey Carbery’s latest hamstring injury is “a big concern” as he failed to give a timeframe on his first-choice fly-half’s recovery with a European semi-final date less than three weeks away.
Carbery, playing his first game last Saturday following a six-week lay-off with a hamstring issue sustained on Ireland duty in February, lasted 35 minutes of his comeback in Munster’s Heineken Champions Cup quarter-final victory in Edinburgh.
Carbery, 23, was ruled out of this Friday’s PRO14 clash with Cardiff Blues in Cork and was yesterday set to undergo further medical tests to ascertain the severity of this latest setback, with the Champions Cup semi against Saracens on April 20 now clearly a doubt.
“It is very early to say,” van Graan replied when asked how bad Carbery’s injury was.
“Obviously, the fact that he came off in the first half is a big concern from our side. He will go through some more tests with our medical team today.
“I’m not going to put a timeframe on it. He was out six weeks the previous time, it is difficult to say at this stage because it is a hamstring, whether it’s worse or it’s less, so we will just take it from day to day… but I can say he will definitely not be ready for this weekend.”
The Munster boss insisted Carbery had been good to go for the Edinburgh clash.
“He was perfect the whole week. He did everything our medical team asked him to do. He trained the whole week, full out. There was no sign of anything.
I think you saw the beginning of the game, he went up for that high ball, made his tackles, kicked a goal — so there was no indication that something might happen, so from our side no regrets, there was no sign of anything, he was 100% confident he was ready to go.
Munster also lost flanker Jack O’Donoghue in the first half of their 17-13 win, following a failed head injury assessment.
He must now complete return-to-play protocols before he is made available for selection to face Cardiff on Friday night.
Van Graan said loosehead prop James Cronin (leg) would return “to some training” this week, but was unlikely to feature against Cardiff, but centre Sammy Arnold (leg) trained fully last week and could be in contention for selection.
