Exactly 318 days ago, or nearly 11 months ago, on the 11th of October - Peter O'Mahony lay strewn on the Millenium Stadium turf in Cardiff. He had suffered an ACL injury against France in Ireland's final World Cup game, and his season was over.
O'Mahony isn't back yet, but there is finally a light at the end of the tunnel. The Munster captain is targetting a return to action by no later than Munster's fourth Pro12 game against Edinburgh. That would be 50 weeks removed from that French game.
I am hoping to play somewhere around two, three, four.
O'Mahony was speaking at the Guinness Pro 12 launch, detailing that the Munster backrow we saw pre-injury should be a different player. The Cork flanker took the time to make wholesale repairs, undergoing surgery for an ongoing shoulder issue while he was recovering from his knee injury.
That should mean that O'Mahony should be coming into the season refreshed, and hopefully won't follow in the footsteps of other perennially injured Munster stars of the past like Jerry Flannery or Denis Leamy.
I would hope with the bulk of training I have done now I might get a couple of months or a year perhaps back at the end of my career.
O'Mahony casts an envious eye over at Leinster, specifically at the robustness of Jamie Heaslip. That's never been something associated with the Munster captain, who 'seems to pick up more knocks than a couple of other guys'.
Of course, there's been lots of change at Munster since O'Mahony's last appearance in red back in May 2015. Rassie Erasmus is in, the Munster squad is no longer split between two bases in Cork and Limerick, and CJ Stander is now an Irish international who replaced O'Mahony in the green jersey.
The pair will have to join forces in red to decide who will get into Joe Schmidt's first XV come November.
See Also: Report: Joe Schmidt Set To Sign IRFU Contract Extension
Picture credit: Diarmuid Greene / SPORTSFILE
