Donal Lenihan says Munster's hopes of ending their trophy drought have been severely dented by RG Snyman’s long-term knee injury.
The World Cup-winning lock will meet a specialist to discuss surgery after it was confirmed he suffered a torn ACL just seven minutes into his Munster debut against Leinster.
Snyman could be sidelined for up to nine months, the 25-year-old becoming the latest in a growing list of big-name Munster signings to suffer a serious injury, which includes Christian Cullen, Tyler Bleyendaal and Joey Carbery.
RTÉ analyst Lenihan said: "In my view he’s one of the top five second-row forwards performing on the world stage at the moment - 23 caps for South Africa, a World Cup winner.
"Munster were conscious over the past number of years that they’ve got to the penultimate stage of the big competitions but haven’t been able to get beyond that. He was one of the signings that was earmarked specifically to bridge that gap.
"To lose him after seven minutes of his debut performance… Even in that seven-minute period he made a big impact.
"I don’t know what’s going on in Munster at the moment but they haven’t had huge luck in terms of their marquee signings.
"Joey Carbery, since he arrived from Leinster, has struggled to be fit to perform. That’s a huge blow as well."
Munster will also be without Dave Kilcoyne and Jean Kleyn for Sunday’s Guinness Pro14 game against Connacht.
The pair have been ruled out "for the immediate future" with ankle and neck ligament injuries respectively.
"Even in that seven minute period, he made a big impact so it's a huge blow"
— RTÉ Rugby (@RTErugby) August 25, 2020
Donal Lenihan gives his take on confirmation of the severity of Munster lock RG Snyman's injury: https://t.co/vR0umKm25M #rterugby pic.twitter.com/mhYn0898Zm
