IT WAS A lonely sight. While the Ireland squad was out on the training pitch warming up for another high-intensity session, Jack Conan was working with the Irish physios in the gym alongside the field. The windows in the gym at Ireland’s training base in Tours don’t look out onto the pitch, so all Conan could see in between his sets was a gravel car park.
This was last week, though, and today brought some progress for Conan. It was a big day for the Ireland number eight, who stepped up his rehabilitation of a foot ligament injury by running on the pitch.
Conan was reportedly happy with how it went, Ireland’s medical team were seemingly happy with how it went, and head coach Andy Farrell was surely happy too.
Farrell has great faith in Conan’s ability to contribute for Ireland, so it’s no surprise that the Ireland boss has stuck by him over the last few weeks. It’s obviously not ideal for any player to miss the opening two games of the World Cup, but Ireland have been willing to wait for Conan so far.
They say the aim is for the Leinster man to be fit and available for next weekend’s clash with South Africa in Paris on 23 September, although it’s another matter to be selected in the matchday 23 for that pivotal Pool B meeting. And given that Conan has only just started running again, there clearly isn’t huge certainty.
In general, Conan has been an important part of Farrell’s plans when he’s been fit over the last couple of years. In the 2022 Six Nations, Conan started three games at number eight and came off the bench in the other two.
That summer in New Zealand, he came off the bench in all three Tests of the series success against the All Blacks. And while he wasn’t a first-choice starter over the course of the 2022/23 season, Conan did play in all three November Tests and every game of the Grand Slam campaign.
Conan started the Italy match during the Six Nations and though it wasn’t his best performance, he responded strongly when he was needed off the bench early in the next game against Scotland, delivering a try-scoring stormer of a display. Conan was punchy off the bench in the Grand Slam-sealing win over England too.
He had started very well in Ireland’s first World Cup warm-up game against Italy early last month, showing off his footwork and ball-handling skills, but then his foot injury forced him off after just 25 minutes.
Conan must have cursed his bad luck. His 2019 World Cup was ended early by a foot injury and he has had to deal with something similar this time around.
Despite the obvious need for time to get fit again, Farrell didn’t hesitate to include Conan in his World Cup squad. The Ireland boss was initially optimistic about the recovery timeframe, suggesting that Conan might be right for the kick-off of the tournament.
Indeed, Conan trained with the rest of the Ireland squad on Friday 2 September, the day after they arrived in France. All seemed to be going well.
“Jack trained yesterday and like any stage in rehab, it always depends on how he backs it up the next day, so we’ll see how it goes today,” said Farrell 10 days ago.
Given that Conan was then withdrawn from on-pitch training sessions and returned to doing rehab in the gym, one can only assume that there was a setback of some kind. And so, Conan finds himself back at that point of hoping that his running session doesn’t aggravate the injury. As Ireland said, he was happy today but it’s all about backing it up. These must be nervy times.
Clearly, it’s not ideal for Ireland to have an injury anywhere in their squad. It limits the possibilities for selection and exposes other players to more minutes on the pitch than possibly would have been the case otherwise.
It would be interesting to know if Farrell has considered replacing Conan in the squad at any stage but if he was pondering that, he’d only have had to mentally flick through the Bray man’s CV for reasons to keep him around at this World Cup.
39-times capped Conan is dynamic, skillful, and smart. At the age of 31, he has plenty of experience. Having started four Pro14 final successes for Leinster and come off the bench in their 2018 Champions Cup success, he has also been part of winning Ireland teams. Even back in the 2018 Grand Slam, Conan started one game and was unlucky to be injured, but recovered to come off the bench in another of Ireland’s wins.
On the most recent Lions tour in 2021, Conan started all three Tests for Warren Gatland’s side and was one of the success stories of the tour. As tends to be the case, it took a while to get going again after that trip to South Africa but Conan has been a big contributor to Ireland’s success over the last two seasons.
Removing injury from the equation for a second, Conan’s place in the World Cup squad was never really in doubt. Connacht’s Cian Prendergast was the man to miss out among Ireland’s final back row options and would presumably be the next cab off the rank if Conan has another setback.
Munster number eight Gavin Coombes would be another option, but he was cut from the wider training squad earlier than Prendergast, who got a start at number eight in the warm-up game against England.
The plain reality is that Prendergast and Coombes haven’t yet put together the body of work Conan has, so it’s not hard to see why Farrell and Ireland have been holding out hope that Conan will come right.
