WHEN IT RAINS, it bloody well pours.
And when a sportsman is injured, one moving part put out of action quickly becomes two, and another usually follows just when you think the troubles are over.
“It was a bit frustrating last season, the year before I played every game,” says Connacht captain Gavin Duffy.
“Maybe every minute bar 10 when I was in the sin-bin.”
This season, under a new coach held the promise of a clean slate, but Duffy will spend the first month of the new campaign nursing a broken cheekbone – the product of an some exuberance and a flying boot during training out west.
Last season was a stop-start struggle against muscular strains and Duffy will hope that once his cracked bone heals, he can keep himself free from November through to May.
“It was certainly frustrating, I had never done a hamstring injury and this time I had two in a season. The most important thing is that I had time to get it right and I feel I’m coming back with a new enthusiasm.”
In his absence, the baton will once again rest with the young stars of Connacht. In particular Robbie Henshaw, who was handed such a big early opportunity to impress at Duffy’s expense last season.
“Robbie’s taken to it like a duck to water,” Duffy adds, “he’s a very level headed guy. I was most impressed with him at the school’s final maybe three or four months before he came into us.
“He’s a big physical guy with great skills, but the one thing that impressed me that day was he didn’t try to take everything on himself. There were times he just put the guy beside him into space. It was kind of unique to see a guy at that age with such appreciation of all the guys around him.
“He could be a threat even though he wasn’t trying to make 10 guys take him down. He knew when to play the pass and offload, he has great skills. It was no surprise that when he got his chance, he took it.
Of course, the versatility of both Henshaw and Duffy means that new coach Pat Lam won’t have to pick one over the other when both men return to fitness.
Duffy has proved himself just as adept on the wing as he is at fullback and Lam believes that his young prodigy, having come out of school as a centre, can return there with ease. But only if it’s the best thing for Connacht.
“He can play both of those positions comfortably,” Lam says of Henshaw. “Connacht is not only developing him, but developing the team.
“We’ve got to put the best team out there week-in, week-out, the best available team. So to have guys capable of paying different positions is a real bonus when you don’t have a lot of depth in experience across the squad compared to some of the other teams.”
That shallow playing pool is exactly why both Lam and Duffy must hope for a long dry spell on the injury front.
