With a British and Irish Lions’ tour victory over Australia in his grasp, Hugo Keenan spotted the gap and darted over the line in Melbourne to ensure the series was wrapped up with a game to spare.
Sure, there was a defeat in the final game to conclude the series as the Wallabies salvaged pride in the Sydney rain, but after a long and challenging season, Keenan’s thoughts turned to addressing a hip problem that had plagued him for upwards of 18 months.
Sitting out the first half of the new club season and missing out on Ireland’s November internationals was not ideal, but needs must and a return in January seemed on track when misfortune would strike.
On a pre-Six Nations training camp with Ireland in Portugal, Keenan suffered a fractured thumb which would sideline him for the entire tournament, pushing back his return that finally came in Leinster’s 38-17 defeat by Glasgow in the URC on 21 March.
The full-back did cross for a try in that game, but with Edinburgh the visitors to Dublin’s Aviva Stadium in the last 16 of the European Champions Cup on Sunday [17:30 BST], he admits “it only feels like my season’s getting going now”.
“With the hip, it was nearly pre-planned. I knew it was coming; it was a time to get right and a good time post-Lions when there’s naturally a bigger break,” Keenan said at Leinster’s news conference this week.
“It was tough being out of November [internationals] but I accepted it and that was manageable when the thumb injury came about, I’d been declared fit and was starting to feel sharp.
“I’d just missed out on playing a game with Leinster and then for it to come about in the first training session in a backs unit with limited contact after five and a half months [out], it was really frustrating, but these things happen.
“It’s given me a chance to get fully right, get even fitter, get the rest of the body feeling good. It’s been a long couple of weeks but I’m raring to go now.”
