Hard knocks part of life for Tomás

WITH a season of injury-induced frustration such as he has had, it might come as a surprise that Tomás O’Leary should choose a sports documentary series by the name of Hard Knocks to pass the long hours of hotel life with Ireland.

Whether in camp on the Dublin outskirts or on the road, as he will be this weekend as the Six Nations campaign takes Ireland to Cardiff, there is plenty of time to kill between training sessions, gym work and team meetings.

Yet having been reduced to a stop-start season by a fractured thumb and a recurring back spasm that kept the 27-year-old Munster scrum-half out of Ireland’s narrow victory over Scotland at Murrayfield nine days ago, the HBO documentary series about pre-season training with an NFL team hardly seems like an escape from it all.