The worst fears of RG Snyman and Munster have been cruelly realised after the province confirmed that their World Cup-winning South African lock suffered a re-rupture of his cruciate ligament in Sunday's United Rugby Championship win against the Scarlets.
The 26-year-old first suffered a ruptured cruciate ligament seven minutes into his debut against Leinster at the Aviva Stadium in August last year, sidelining him for 13 months until his comeback in the win over the Sharks just over a fortnight ago.
Snyman now faces another operation and a long period of rehabilitation after rupturing his anterior cruciate ligament on Sunday.
A Munster statement read: “The World Cup-winning Springbok will meet with the specialist next to discuss surgery and management.”
Commenting on the injury blow, head coach Johann van Graan said: “We are all hugely disappointed for RG. After doing everything that was asked of him and working so hard to get back into great shape everyone feels for him right now.
“While this is a setback, we know RG is young and resilient given everything he has gone through in the last year so there is a strong sense of perspective here.
“We have seen what other world class players have done in this position before and they have come back to reach the successful heights of their careers and I would expect no different for someone of RG’s class and standing.”
Snyman’s signing, along with that of Damian de Allende, in the immediate aftermath of South Africa’s World Cup victory understandably generated great expectations in Munster heading into last season. The powerful, 6ft 9in secondrow played in all seven of the Springboks’ games in Japan and was an integral part of the so-called Bomb Squad off the bench in the knock-out stages against Japan, Wales and England.
His return to fitness, evidenced by the roars that greeted his first two comeback games at Thomond Park and that barnstorming, slam dunk finish against the Stormers last Saturday week, had revived those hopes among the Munster squad and fans.
Now, alas, it was just a fleeting glimpse of the added dimension which Snyman could have provided last season, or now this. Instead, his Munster career has again stalled virtually without take-off as so far he has been restricted to about 50 minutes’ actual game time, a tally which, through no fault of his own, he is unlikely to supplement in his second season of a two-year deal.
Munster are well stocked in the secondrow, with Tadhg Beirne to come back into the mix this week after his Lions’ exploits and new signing Jason Jenkins still sidelined for the time being. In addition to Jean Kleyn and Fineen Wycherley, the richly promising Thomas Ahern has been promoted from the academy.
Yet such are Snyman's skills and reach in the air, along with his explosive carrying, physicality and offloading with those octopus-like arms, that had all been fit for big URC or European games, then it probably would have been a question of who partnered him in the secondrow. Alas, not now.
