It's been a season of frustration for Fineen Wycherley, but the versatile Munster forward believes he has plenty of gas in the tank heading into the business end of the season.
Almost ever-present in the province's matchday squads in recent years, the 25-year-old has been limited to just five games so far this season, after a nagging shoulder injury saw him ruled out for close to four months.
And having returned to action in late January against Benetton, the Six Nations breaks have seen to it that his comeback has been staggered.
"I came back and we had one game and then it was rest time again," says the versatile forward.
"Look, it probably came at a good time in terms of my rehab and things like that, and returning to play having one game and giving it a week to rest was probably the best thing to do.
"It's not what I wanted to do, I would have loved to have played another game but this is the time of the season you can't change fixtures, unfortunately."
The Bantry native will make his 91st Munster appearance if selected for Friday's BKT United Rugby Championship meeting with Scarlets at Musgrave Park (live on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player), a figure which highlights how lucky he's been with injury in his young career to date.
"I think when I was in the academy, I had maybe an eight or nine-week period with my ankle, but other than that I've been lucky. Maybe one or two weeks here and there with a hamstring or a slight strain, but never anything that lasted more than maybe two or three weeks.
"That's the peaks and troughs of the game. Injuries are going to happen. It's part of the game. It's been a tough couple of months for me but I'm absolutely delighted to be back out there with the lads."
The Munster side Wycherley returned to in January was almost a different team to the one he had been involved with at the start of the season. He started the first three games of the campaign in which the province were struggling to get to grips with their new system under Graham Rowntree and Mike Prendergast, losing to Cardiff and Dragons before an unconvincing win against Zebre at Musgrave Park.
The wheels are very much back on the Munster wagon by now though, with the squad adapting to their faster tempo in training, and getting the results to match.
Six wins in their last seven URC games have seen them up to fifth in the table, with a top four finish well within reach.
And while Wycherley's shoulder issue saw him miss out on 14 games for the province, he says the way the province train means he was able to continually add to his game, even if he couldn't go into full-contact.
"I was lucky. Maybe the last six to eight weeks before I came back, I was doing a lot of skills beside the pitch and lads who were subbing in and out of the team would come over and do skills with us. And just the pace of that training, the intensity... You could kind of see that we were building and building and building.
"Thankfully, over the last couple of weeks, things have started to click. We're very confident in our 'D' and we're very confident in our attack now. We're playing totally differen"t rugby to what we did back in those Zebre days or in the first couple of weeks of the season.
"Denis [Leamy] is great, early on in my rehab I would have pulled him for a chat and I couldn't do contact, but he just had so many drills, he's worked with Josh [Van der Flier] and with different players in Leinster and he was able to give me a lot of those drills that I could use.
"Probably for me it's around my carry, after contact, keeping my legs alive and the option to catch the ball early and be able to ball play at a higher level, I think it's an easy skill but catching the ball early and keeping it off your chest, it's something that you don't think about a whole pile but after the last couple of months, I have had a lot of time to think about it and for me it's been that carry, the ability to make more yardage on my carry and to put guys away or whatever the call may be, that's probably been the biggest work-on over the last couple of weeks."
Even with Tadhg Beirne ruled out until May with an ankle issue, the province look well-stocked at second row, with RG Snyman available for selection and Tom Ahern working his way back to fitness, joining Wycherley, Jeam Kleyn and Edwin Edogbo in consideration for a place in the squad.
And with just six games under his belt this term, Wycherley is hoping he has a lot more to give between now and June.
"Yeah, definitely. Being sidelined for that long, it can be difficult, you build up a bit of frustration and you build up a bit of excitement and I'm just lucky now that I got back at this time of the season.
"It's the tail end of the season and we have important games coming up, but I just hope I can play my part over the next couple of weeks and do my best for the team."
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