Kearney keen to make late bid

It has been a long time coming but Rob Kearney finally gets the chance to wear a Lions jersey again, relieved to be over the hamstring injury that threatened to end his second tour before it began.

The full-back was looking at the top of his game as the domestic and European season drew to a conclusion when disaster befell Kearney just before Leinster’s RaboDirect Pro12 final against Ulster on May 25 and he withdrew with a hamstring strain.

He boarded the plane at Heathrow two days later uncertain how bad his injury was and had to wait anxiously for the results of a scan undertaken in Hong Kong to learn if he would travel on to Australia as a squad member.

“I got a scan in Hong Kong and it could easily have gone either way,” Kearney said. “I could have been getting the first flight back to Dublin or going off with the lads to Australia.

“So it does give you a bit of perspective and then when you see a couple of the boys, Cian (Healy) and Gethin (Jenkins), having to head home, you start to feel a little bit that luck might be on your side.

“And then obviously this weekend I get the chance to put on the jersey again and it’s a fantastic feeling, albeit a little bit late. But listen, there’s a lot to happen yet.”

Fortunately for Kearney, the results were encouraging, revealing a slight grade one hamstring tear with a recovery period that head coach Warren Gatland felt would be worth waiting for.

“I spoke to Gats in Hong Kong and he said ‘listen, if you need two weeks to get fit, take it’. When you have that sort of clarity from a coach it makes it pretty easy to focus your own mind.

“You do take a huge amount of solace from that and I suppose it spurs you on a little bit more wanting to get fit that little bit quicker and repay that faith shown in you.”

Kearney gets that chance today, having been named among the replacements for the Lions’ penultimate game before the first Test, against the Waratahs at Sydney’s Allianz Stadium.

While the Leinster man concedes he may be running out of time, he is not giving up hope of ousting starting full-back favourite Leigh Halfpenny from the selectors’ thoughts.

“It’s still in my sights. If I had got the start this week and maybe they looked at different combinations it might have been a little bit more in my sights then, but anything can happen this weekend: someone could go down after two minutes and then rejigging goes on. Certainly it’s probably a little bit less likely in the last couple of days.”

As Kearney said, a lot can change very quickly. Especially playing personnel over a three-match Test series. Halfpenny and Kearney’s rivalry also highlights the strength in depth Gatland enjoys in this 2013 squad, a much more formidable panel than the pair were part of four years ago in South Africa when the Irishman played in all three Tests against the Springboks.

“I think it’s a much stronger squad,” he said of the 2013 Lions. “It’s younger, too, maybe, but it still has that experience as well. What’s great about this squad is that there are so many Test players in it whereas maybe four years ago in South Africa you mightn’t have had that same depth in the squad so overall I do think it’s a stronger squad.”

Kearney may be the last player to get a run on this tour but he is experienced enough to know that while he has to make an impact off the bench today in his first outing in four weeks, there is a long way to go and he must resist the temptation to try too hard against the Waratahs. “I’m lucky I am in a position where doing the basics and being consistent are rewarded. At the same time I know I don’t have to come on to the field and make a 60-metre break, score two tries and knock over a few drop goals to put myself in the frame; you’ve just got to be consistent.”