Leinster coach Matt O'Connor is confident Australian secondrow Kane Douglas will be in Ireland before the season's first round of the Champions Cup begins on the weekend of October 17th.
Douglas is contracted to the Australian Rugby Union until the end of the year but has suffered at the hands of Australian selection protocols, which is not to pick players for the national team if they are playing overseas.
When the 25-year-old lock signed up to leave Michael Cheika’s NSW Waratahs side for Leinster, he also ended his international career with Ewen McKenzie and the Wallabies. Douglas has won 14 caps for Australia. However, O’Connor yesterday said that he was sure the 6ft 8in player – the second tallest in the team behind Devin Toner – will be in Dublin for Leinster’s opening pool two match against Wasps “We’ve had a few positive conversations in relation to that and it will certainly be well in advance of that date,” said O’Connor.
Release process
“We’re just trying to work out the logistics of when that will actually be. There is a release process. We need to get him signed off by them. Nothing can happen until that’s achieved.
“All things being equal, that’s looking quite positive. It will be sooner rather than later”.
Before the Heineken Cup? “Definitely.”
O’Connor has already stated that Douglas and Samoan international centre Ben Te’o from rugby league side South Sydney Rabbitohs, will add an extra dimension to the Leinster side.
Certainly Douglas, who made his Wallaby debut against Argentina in 2012, brings the mix of being a young player as well as being experienced. He’s played a string of big games in the Super 12 and for 80 minutes in almost all of them.
Irish under-20 captain Dan Leavy is the only significant injury to come out of Leinster’s friendly match against Ulster in Tallaght at the weekend. Leavy strained a medial ligament.
There's still also continued delay in the ongoing saga of Luke Fitzgerald. The player must be pulling his hair out after all the false starts. While his groin/abdomen, which had surgery on four different sites over the summer, continues to improve, his place on the paddock requires more time. "Lukey's doing really well," said the coach. "He's probably at the very end of his rehab. The thinking is he needs a little bit of time to get reacquainted with the game, play a little bit of rugby before we put him out there.
‘Medical team’
“He’s probably a couple of weeks away from rugby. The medical team is pretty confident that moving forward he should be over that hump, so to speak, and on an injury-free run, hopefully”.
Munster yesterday confirmed the signing of Argentinian hooker Eusebio Guinazu on a four-month contract. Eusebio will join the province later in the month subject to obtaining a work permit and passing the medical procedures. With Mike Sherry on the long-term injury list following shoulder surgery the 32-year-old has been recruited on a short-term contract. Guinazu has just completed two seasons at Bath and previously played for Biarritz and Toulouse as well as Super Rugby side the Stormers.
The Mendoza-born international has 36 caps for his country and featured for Argentina in the 2013 Rugby Championship campaign.
“We need to hit the ground running this season and to do this we need to have a full complement of players available to us,” said Munster coach Anthony Foley.
