Injured Ireland winger Mack Hansen has been using his time off to reconnect with his Irish roots.
The Canberra-born Ireland international moved from Australia to join the westerners in 2021 and was a regular under Andy Farrell until a dislocated shoulder last January ruled him out of the current Guinness Six Nations.
The ex-Brumbies man qualifies for Ireland via his Cork mother, Diana O'Shea, who hails from Castlemartyr.
After getting through 30 Connacht games and 21 Irish caps largely unscathed, Hansen has had to deal with a foot injury and then a shoulder injury, which he told RTÉ Sport yesterday was "the worst injury I've had."
The 25-year-old hopes to return to action in May in time for the URC knock-out stages, while Ireland will tour South Africa in July.
Speaking as a Wings for Life ambassador yesterday, Hansen (above) revealed he has been catching up with his Irish family in the south.
"I've been down, saw the old family home and caught up with a lot of cousins, made a trip around Cork and all that," he said.
"No, it was great fun. It was really cool to see where my mum grew up.
"It's now a Chinese takeaway or something like that, which was funny enough.
"It's called like Mr Tasty [Bite] or something. It was cool to see where she grew up, where my nana grew up and stuff like that.
"It made me feel a lot closer to that side of the family, catching up with all of those cousins that I hadn't seen before.
"It was a really cool experience, something that I cherish.
"I made a choice to come over here and I still had an opportunity to head back to Oz at some point before I put [the jersey] on so no matter what I was always going to give the jersey 100% and knew how much of a privilege it was."
After getting his Ireland call-up in 2022, Hansen quickly became a firm fan favourite and is heralded among the squad as a "breath of fresh air".
He has a tattoo of team-mate Oisin Dowling and head coach Farrell and has spoken about his disdain for "boring" media training.
While rehabbing his foot injury after the World Cup, he was spotted drinking a pint among the fans at the Dexcom Stadium.
On his new-found profile, he said: "I've gotten to think about how lucky I've been over the last couple of years.
"Y'know, saying that, I've always put in the hard work to get to the position I'm in.
"But at the end of the day, I do feel lucky that I was able to go pretty much injury-free for a good couple of years and I think that's kind of what gave me the ability to go on and push for higher honours, y'know?
"Once you play more games in a row, you just get more comfortable out on the field and all that.
"I haven’t really thought about the other aspect, being seen [as famous by others].".
Meanwhile, earlier in the week Hansen joined up with the Ireland squad for a change of scenery as he continues to recuperate.
Ireland can wrap up a second consecutive Six Nations title with a win or draw against Scotland on Saturday.
A historic Grand Slam shot evaded the team as they lost 23-22 to England last weekend.
"Look, yeah, Monday was a bit doom and gloom," he said of the mood in camp in Dublin.
"I kinda knew it was coming on Monday because we've had one or two of those meetings where maybe we've thought we let the occasion get ahead of us a bit.
"So, I knew it was going to be a tough morning, it was going to be a lot of reflecting on what could have been.
"But saying that, Faz [Andy Farrell] was pretty good at just telling everyone, y'know, 'this happened. Now it's time to move on. We've still got stuff to play for - we've still got plenty to play for.'
"So, the last two days have been great. There's been a bubbly energy around the group, everyone's laughing, smiling, and it's just excitement for this week ahead, really."
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