JACK CONAN WILL have surgery on the foot he injured at the World Cup as Leinster prepare to be without their number eight for an extended period, including the opening stages of their Heineken Champions Cup campaign.
Conan suffered the injury in the build-up to Ireland’s second World Cup game against Japan and having returned to Leinster last week, will now have a procedure in the UK to repair the damage.
The 27-year-old, who came off the bench during the opening game win over Scotland in Yokohama, was due to start against the host nation but pulled up in training in the days before.
After seeing a foot specialist, Conan will go under the knife and while an exact prognosis has yet to be determined, Leo Cullen hopes the rehabilitation picture becomes clearer by the end of the week.
With Leinster beginning their European campaign in November, Conan is set to miss a good chunk of the Champions Cup pool stages and could be in a race to be fit for the 2020 Six Nations.
“Jack is going to have some sort of procedure done so we’ll have some more information later in the week,” Leinster head coach Cullen confirmed this afternoon.
Ahead of the province’s Guinness Pro14 clash against Edinburgh at the RDS on Friday night [KO 7.35pm, eir Sport/Premier Sports], Cullen also explained Ed Byrne’s neck injury is taking longer to heal than initially envisaged.
With Cian Healy away at the World Cup and Jack McGrath now at Ulster, Byrne was due to start Leinster’s campaign-opener against Benetton a fortnight ago but had to pull out with the neck issue.
The loosehead prop won’t feature this week but Cullen is hopeful of having Byrne back for Leinster’s Pro14 trip to Zebre on 26 October.
“It has just been a bit slower than we thought,” Cullen continued. “He got a bang on his neck and it just hasn’t quite settled down.
“We were hoping he was going to be involved over the last couple of weeks but it has been pushed out again. The break next week and hopefully he’ll be good to go after that. But, again, we can’t say for certain.”
James Lowe came through his first game of the season on Friday reporting no issues after shoulder surgery, but Barry Daly, Dan Leavy [both knee] and Ciarán Frawley [ankle] remain long-term absentees.
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