After spending most of this season on the sidelines, Hugo Keenan is hoping to make up for lost time as Leinster head into the business end of their campaign.
The full-back has had to endure the longest injury break of his career this year, with a seven-month gap between action before he returned in the province's 38-17 defeat to Glasgow Warriors a couple of weeks ago.
The 29-year-old had been expecting this season to be a slow burn after his series-clinching heroics for the British and Irish Lions last summer.
A hip issue which had been bothering him for some time had been scheduled in for surgery, which would likely keep him out until the new year.
It was late January before he was back up to speed, too late to get some minutes with Leinster, but just in time to go straight in with Ireland for the Six Nations, before a fractured thumb on day one of Ireland’s Portugal training camp saw him ruled out another two months.
"That was the most gutting part," he says of the pre-Six Nations setback.
"With the hip, it was nearly pre-planned. I knew it was coming. It was a time to get it right.
"It's a good time to do it, post-Lions when there's naturally a bigger break. And it was tough being out of November, but I accepted it. And that was manageable.
"When the thumb injury came about, when I was just declared fit, I'd been back training a few weeks, starting to feel sharp. I'd just missed out on maybe playing a game with Leinster.
"And then for it to come about, like first training session in a backs unit with limited contact after sort of five and a half months, it was really frustrating."
The upshot is that his extra injury delay has still allowed him to work hard at his fitness, given the seriousness of his earlier hip surgery.
And as Leinster turn towards knockout rugby, the Ireland international doesn’t believe he will need long to get back up to full speed.
"I'm really excited," he added.
"It's been a longer journey than I thought. There have been a few ups and downs along the way.
"It really only feels like my season's getting going now, sort of over halfway through it.
"So there's still plenty of rugby to be played and I’m just trying to get up to speed with everything, get sharp, and get cracking into games because this end of the season, it's all big ones."
Seven months out has also given him the opportunity to do some extra studying around the trends of the game, and in particular how the role of wingers and full-backs is changing as teams adapt to the way the kick-and-chase game is refereed.
"It does give you an opportunity to look at more games. You're not just analysing Leinster, Ireland games or previewing opposition who are just coming right around the corner, you get to maybe dive a little bit deeper into what all the teams are doing across the Six Nations, what the different trends, tactics are.
"And it's such a sort of big area at the moment, the aerial game and all the attack and defence that goes with it off the back of it and how it can swing games, how it defined a lot of that Ireland-France game and how France were so dominant, and when you look at the other side of this, how Scotland maybe dominated France in that area and Ireland maybe to Scotland.
"So it was as if no team had fully cracked it themselves. A lot of the time, it's on the day who outperforms you.
"It's an exciting period for back-three players because there's such emphasis on that area. And it's probably part of the game I pride myself on and a lot of the lads do in Irish and Leinster camp," the 46-cap Ireland international said.
Keenan didn't feature in Friday’s bonus-point win against the Scarlets at Aviva Stadium, which ended their two-game losing run, and the province look set to pick their strongest available team this weekend, as they welcome Edinburgh to Dublin for an Easter Sunday Champions Cup Round of 16 clash.
With nine days between their win against the Scarlets and Sunday’s Champions Cup clash, the group decided to use their extra time this week by taking a field trip to a Dublin landmark, one closely associated with Easter.
"We gathered in Kilmainham Gaol yesterday [Monday] as a bit of a squad session off-site to make those connections again, to have a bit of time amongst ourselves outside the building as players and staff. And it was the first time we'd been together for nearly two months.
"James Ryan's often the historian in the group. Obviously he’s got a rich history himself with his great-grandfather [who fought in the 1916 Rising] and he's got a real passion and interest for it. And then we had two tour guides who were really good as well, sort of obviously explaining the history to us. But yeah, James would definitely take a lead.
"I think Leo's quite into it as well, he had done the tour before and had a good experience. So that's why he thought it'd be a good idea."
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