Kearney brothers give Blues boost

It seems the Kearney boys are like buses: you wait ages for one to come along and then two turn up one after the other.

No one has waited longer or more impatiently than the pair themselves and the indications are that Dave, the younger of the siblings, will return to Leinster colours this week against Cardiff while Rob’s reintroduction seems more likely a week later in Cardiff.

For Dave, it will be his seasonal bow and, though he is ahead of his rehab schedule, he must feel like he has more than paid his dues in casualty given his last appearance was a two-minute cameo at the tail end of last season’s Pro12 final defeat to Ospreys.

“Anyone who is injured always feels like it is a frustrating time, especially when the big games come along. Especially when you are watching games, you wish you were out there. It’s even the same with training, you are off doing your own thing. It does get frustrating.”

Adding to the frustration was the fact he had just completed his best season, with 22 appearances that included his first Heineken Cup start and a 12-minute offering off the bench in the Twickenham final.

With Luke Fitzgerald another long-term absentee this season, there would have been plenty of scope for another lengthy audition on the wing but instead Andrew Conway, Fionn Carr, Fergus McFadden and Darren Hudson have all been given a shot at the available jersey.

Yet, had things been different, the Clongowes graduate may well have been waking up this morning in the hope that his name would make it into Declan Kidney’s squad for the upcoming November Series.

After all, it is only little over half a year since he was called into the senior squad for a spell during the Six Nations but his absence has coincided with others — and Simon Zebo especially — pushing ahead of him in the queue.

Kearney’s absence was occasioned by surgery on both hips. It is a procedure that confines some patients to a wheelchair for a spell, although the 22-year managed to escape with just a handful of days on a special weight-bearing apparatus.

“It was basically just the cartilage in my hip joints was torn and it had to be fixed up. It was nothing new, a routine procedure.”