TADHG FURLONG SAYS he is hopeful of being available for selection for Ireland’s Six Nations opener away to Wales on 4 February having stepping up his recovery from his latest injury setback.
The Leinster tighthead has been sidelined with unrelated ankle, hamstring and calf issues since the November internationals – with his only appearance since the last Test window a 36 minute cameo off the bench against Ulster on 3 December.
Yet with Ireland’s opening fixture against Wales fast approaching, Furlong says he’s close to making a full recovery from his latest setback and all going to plan, should be ready to feature in Cardiff.
“I hope so. That’s the plan, or back available for selection anyway.” Furlong says. “We have to see how we go. You have to hit certain markers and stuff like that along the way.”
Furlong was injured in December and was closing in on a return to action when he suffered a calf injury earlier this month.
“I pulled my hamstring against Ulster, then I got back, and usually they integrate you into units and stuff the week before you go back fully training,” he explains.
“So, I did all that and then I was fit the Ospreys week, scrum session, one of them ones, scrum collapsed, leg got caught weird and ping goes the calf. It’s one of them ones but it’s unrelated. Sometimes you re-injure something and that’s a real pain, but it’s just one of them things, it’s part of the job.
“If they are related, you’re like ‘What’s going on? We are missing something here, you know what I mean? But when they are unrelated, it’s easier (to deal with) because it’s just one of those things. The way I was told, it’s similar to getting injured poaching a ball. It just happens, nothing you can do about it.
“We put a good big bank of work in coming back from the hamstring, to try and be nice and bulletproof in terms of a lot of that stuff.
“Is it frustrating? Yeah, it is frustrating when it happens, but there is nothing you can do about it. You just have to keep going.”
Furlong won’t feature for Leinster against Racing tomorrow and is expected to sit out next week’s URC clash against Cardiff, meaning if he does play against Wales, it would be his first outing in two months.
While the 30-year-old admits there will have to be an element of caution in managing his return to action, he added he would back himself to hit the ground running for Ireland.
“You can’t really push these things too hard, would be my sense on it.
“It’s a hard one, I think you have to trust yourself a lot. And being experienced, I would have done it coming back in the 2021 Six Nations, when I came off a long lay-off with Covid and that, enforced.
I got back in and you hit your groove pretty quick. A lot of it is just trying to stay engaged in the game and follow the habits because that’s moving on quick the whole time, and you just have to stay with it if you want to feel like you are on top of the ground playing the game, not watching it when you get back.”
Ireland head coach Andy Farrell will be keen to have his prized tighthead available, and Furlong feels another couple of weeks on the training ground should have him sufficiently battle-hardened to take on the Welsh scrum.
“The Welsh regions are scrummaging very well, particularly Ospreys,” he continues.
“You can do it (get match ready) in training. A lot of scrummaging is about trust. You trust a lot of what you have done in training and sticking with it in the game. Training is a big one.
“Even some of the non-live scrummaging, your set-up, just sitting down at the computer with the lads, talking it through and feeling it out, just getting on a straight line with it.
“The hardest thing about scrummaging is about finding your feel, it’s one thing looking at it, but you have to feel good, you have to feel like you are in the right slot, you are so interdependent and reliant on everyone else in the scrum to make you feel good.
“Me vice versa, I could be doing something that off-puts a loosehead or a hooker or the second-row behind me. It’s about getting up to speed quickly, sometimes it is slow. It can take a good few sessions to get into that and (then) everyone is on the same page.”
Tadhg Furlong was speaking as Just Eat announce the launch of their sustainable Notpla food packaging at Leinster Rugby fixtures across the remainder of the 2022/23 season. Just Eat has created a €50,000 fund that will subsidise the cost of the environmentally friendly packaging for its Irish restaurant partner network. Find out more information at: just-eat.ie/blog/news/
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