Mack Hansen is in line to return for Connacht for next weekend's BKT URC clash with Dragons, easing fears about the winger’s availability for Ireland’s upcoming internationals.
The 26-year-old missed Connacht's defeat to Leinster on Saturday and was seen limping during the previous weekend’s loss to Ulster.
However, speaking to RTÉ Sport on Monday morning, head coach Pete Wilkins provided a positive update.
"I’m hoping Mack will be available, he’s certainly down to train today," said Wilkins about the Canberra native, who missed the Six Nations and summer tour to South Africa with a shoulder injury.
"I’m hoping he’s going to be back on deck.
"He had a hip-pointer injury in that Ulster game about 10 minutes in that was pretty sore and he battled through without being able to shake it off in time for the Leinster game, so I am optimistic he will be involved this week."
The 33-12 defeat at the Dexcom Stadium marked the first game in five that Connacht had failed to come away with any match points, and while Leinster controlled the tie for large spells, Wilkins still felt that they "shortchanged" themselves.
In one-score losses to Munster and Ulster this season, out-half Josh Ioane (below) missed a number of penalty kicks to touch and he added another two on Saturday night.
"That whole kicking game, Josh is having to adapt to in terms of the weather conditions up here," he said of the Kiwi, who moved to Connacht from the Chiefs in the summer.
"It’s not simply the wind that affects how far you can kick the ball or kicking across the wind but it affects the drop of the ball onto your foot.
"For kickers, it’s such a small margin for error. Depending on the type of ball drop you have you can leave yourself more exposed to the conditions.
"It’s something Josh is having to work really hard on, he’s doing a tremendous amount of work with that, the growth is there. The unfortunate thing is that it’s shown up a couple of times in those missed kicks to touch from penalties.
"The important bit from my end is that I keep encouraging him to be positive with it and be brave with it. We’d rather aim for the 5m line in our kicks into the 22 to give us that scoring opportunity, rather than be too cautious. We want to go for it in every sense of the game."
Forde-tress Breaking Through Defense!📷
— BKT United Rugby Championship (URC) (@URCOfficial) October 19, 2024
Cathal Forde scores a magical try for @connachtrugby - stuff of legends!#BKTURC #URC | #CONvLEI pic.twitter.com/xWxeHb5AFE
On the nature of the defeat, Wilkins added: "My frustration was with the flow of the game, it certainly wasn’t with Josh as an individual.
"In terms of the flow of the game, it was a contest that we wanted to put Leinster under more pressure.
"I knew we had more in us, the players felt we had more in us but we never got close enough to prove that.
"Anytime we don’t give the best versions of ourselves, we come away with the feeling we’ve shortchanged ourselves and probably our supporters as well 'cos that would have brought them into the game even more so."
Connacht host Dragons, beaten 31-21 at home by Benetton at the weekend, on Saturday (7.35pm) at the Dexcom Stadium
Watch Leinster v Lions in the URC on Saturday from 4.45pm on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player. Follow a live blog on RTÉ.ie/sport and the RTÉ News app.
