MUNSTER HEAD COACH Johann van Graan is confident of having Joey Carbery fit and starting the Heineken Champions Cup quarter-final away to Edinburgh on Saturday (kick-off 12.45).
A hamstring injury has meant the Athy man has not played since helping Ireland to victory over Scotland in round two of the Six Nations.
Van Graan says the out-half will be re-integrated into full training this afternoon and is confident Carbery will prove his fitness to take the 10 jersey.
Be it as contingency or as a back-up option for the bench, Tyler Bleyendaal put his hand up for selection on Saturday with an impressive second-half showing in the win over Zebre.
Van Graan is pleased to see the playmaker show his ability a week out from Europe.
“I thought Tyler did really well from the bench at the weekend,” Van Graan said at Munster’s UL training base.
“We’ve got four quality fly-halves with Tyler, JJ (Hanrahan) and Bill (Johnston). We’ll see how the week goes, there’s still one or two 50-50s, but I’m delighted for Tyler at the way he played on Saturday.”
Along with the returning internationals, Ciaran Parker will also step back into full training today, while Brian Scott (foot), James Cronin (leg) and Tommy O’Donnell (shoulder) continue their rehab programmes.
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Best of luck to him. Fantastic prospect prior to his injuries, could very well have been in challenging for the starting hooker jersey in Japan. Hopefully the gametime gives him a chance a chance to recapture some form. Tough to see him getting a look in a Munster with Scannell, Marshall and O’Byrne ahead of him and Barron tearing up trees coming through the academy.
@Johnny 5: also Munster have Billy Scannell in the academy, he was on the ireland u20 extended panel
@Patrick O Connell: have watched him a lot, every bit as good and better as brother Niall at the same age. His time will come at next years u20s.
Nice to see mike going for some game time. Nothing worse than seeing good players not playing. Best of luck to him.
@Jim Demps: Great move for Mike. Good luck to him.