{"id":202554,"date":"2025-11-27T06:49:12","date_gmt":"2025-11-27T06:49:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/202554\/"},"modified":"2025-11-27T06:49:12","modified_gmt":"2025-11-27T06:49:12","slug":"hugo-keenan-says-he-has-been-battling-hip-injury-for-almost-18-months-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/202554\/","title":{"rendered":"Hugo Keenan says he has been battling hip injury for almost 18 months \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Turns out Hugo Keenan<\/a> has been injured for a while. Close to 18 months in fact, before he decided to sort the issue out once and for all. Shortly after starting all three Tests of the Lions 2-1 series win<\/a> over Australia<\/a>, under the knife he went, a hip issue causing trouble.<\/p>\n

The Leinster<\/a> and Ireland<\/a> fullback remains on course to be fit at some point in January. That we already knew. What was not common knowledge was that Keenan had been dealing with the troublesome joint on and off since the 2024 Six Nations<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt was the second last game, in the England match<\/a> over in Twickenham,\u201d explains Keenan. \u201cAnd then I pulled out in the warm-up for the Scotland game<\/a>, which was the finale trying to win the Six Nations.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s sort of been at me since then and it\u2019s been a busy period going from the end of that season, finals rugby, into the Olympics, back into the 24\/25 season always with the goal of getting to the Lions.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not like I got injured in the last game of the Lions. It was a bit more pre-planned than that, and if there\u2019s ever a good time to get an injury, so people have said, after the Lions tour isn\u2019t a bad time. You\u2019ll be probably rested for two months anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"OllieOllie Chessum of Leicester Tigers poses with Hugo Keenan of Leinster during the 2025\/26 European Professional Club Rugby season launch in London. Photograph: David Rogers\/Getty <\/p>\n

That Keenan remains on course for a January return will be a comfort to Andy Farrell<\/a>. The November pretenders to Keenan\u2019s throne suffered from the fullback injury bug. Jamie Osborne will be sidelined for four months with a dislocated shoulder, while Mack Hansen has gone for a scan after reaggravating the foot injury which saw him miss the All Blacks clash<\/a> in Chicago.<\/p>\n

Inevitable questions follow on what Keenan thought of his understudies. Especially as Hansen returned so emphatically with a three-try, man-of-the-match display against Australia. \u201cI felt for Mack, being on the Lions tour, playing so well, being one of the standout back threes. He was a man on a mission over there,\u201d says Keenan of his now-injured colleague.<\/p>\n

\u201cI met him for a few beers when he didn\u2019t make that initial Autumn squad, for him to flip it around and get two good performances in is thoroughly deserved. Hopefully it\u2019s not a bad injury, I don\u2019t think it is.<\/p>\n

\u201cJamie [Osborne] has played well in that period. He\u2019s been good whether it\u2019s in the centre or back three. It\u2019s good to have that competition but I think if the three of us are all back fit and healthy, there\u2019s space for us all in that backline if we\u2019re all playing well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Comparing the three players is always going to be an interesting exercise. Given his height advantage, Osborne appears to be well-placed as Ireland transition to a more high-volume kicking game. We\u2019ve all heard enough about the relatively new laws incentivising aerial contests which have led most international teams to kick more and more. Then Hansen went and excelled in the aerial department against Australia.<\/p>\n

\"HugoHugo Keenan scores a try for the Lions against Australia. Photograph: Tom Maher\/Inpho <\/p>\n

As the man likely to be occupying air space at 15 come the Six Nations, what did Keenan make of it all?<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s similar to bringing in the 50\/22 rule, it\u2019s good for us wingers and fullbacks who like the aerial side of the game, who like the backfield coverage because it places more emphasis on it,\u201d he says. \u201cI can only see it as a positive. There\u2019s more awareness around how we can impact a game, both your kicking, 50\/22s and the aerial challenge.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt suits me. I would like to think it\u2019s one of my strengths, the aerial side of the game. It suits the lads as well and it suits the Irish back three.\u201d<\/p>\n

Defeat to South Africa<\/a> was headlined by cards and scrum carnage. Lost in the maelstrom was any sort of analysis of how Ireland\u2019s new focus fared against one of the game\u2019s better aerial exponents. It was not as disastrous as other facets of the game. Nor did Ireland get the same joy as they did out of the Wallabies<\/a>.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Gordon D\u2019Arcy: Ireland\u2019s loss against South Africa highlighted one of our biggest problemsOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Regardless, they seem set on going down this path. Fullbacks are always going to be busy in the air in any team but by the time he returns to a green shirt, it sounds like Keenan will be happy stacking up even more air miles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Turns out Hugo Keenan has been injured for a while. Close to 18 months in fact, before he…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":202555,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76],"tags":[18,47468,19,17,34132,12861,70905,96426,132],"class_list":{"0":"post-202554","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-eire","9":"tag-hugo-keenan","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-ireland-rugby","13":"tag-leinster-rugby","14":"tag-lions-tour","15":"tag-six-nations","16":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115620332651900736","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202554","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=202554"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202554\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/202555"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=202554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=202554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=202554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}