MAN OF THE match Bundee Aki only proved his fitness to start Connacht’s superb Pro12 semi-final win over Glasgow in the western province’s warm-up before the game.
Speaking after the 16-11 win for his side in the Sportsground, Connacht head coach Pat Lam revealed that Aki was on crutches as recently as Tuesday after suffering a twisted knee in training.
The outstanding centre recovered in time to take the field for Connacht in their semi-final and delivered the latest in a long, long line of superb performances.
“Bundee is a warrior,” said Lam. “He twisted his knee at training on Tuesday. We had actually finished training and had done the contact session, which was good, and I had the players in the huddle; it was all good.
“The boys then go and do their skills for 10 minutes afterwards, they choose what they want to do.
“Some of the backs decided they wanted a bit more tackling, so that’s their call. I was watching another station where there was catch-pass drills with some of the forwards and out of the corner of my eye, I saw everyone panic and I looked over and said, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me.’
“He was lying on the ground and his knee had been twisted when Tiernan [O'Halloran] had tackled him. I thought, ‘Right, ignore it, don’t worry about it and let the medics deal with it.’
“He left training on crutches.
“The medical team did a great job. They wanted to do a fitness test on him yesterday and I said, ‘No, no.’
“They said they just wanted to check and I said, ‘He’s got until 6.29pm [a minute before kick off] Saturday to work out if he’s going to make it.
“I asked them what the fitness test was going to be and they told me and I said our game day warm-up was tougher than that. We’ll just do the game day warm-up.
“We prepared Peter Robb for the rest of the week and we were prepared to go. It was going to be a boost it Bundee was going to make it. I saw him yesterday and he was keen to do the captain’s run and I said to take it easy.
“When we arrived to the stadium today, the physios were with him and I looked at him.
“He just gave me the thumbs up and he said he was good. He’s tough.”
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