Connacht blow as Faloonset for six-month lay-off

Connacht fear Willie Faloon will be sidelined for six months with a suspected broken foot.

Faloon sustained the injury playing against his former club Ulster on Saturday night with coach Pat Lam describing the injury as a “definite long-termer”.

Lam said: “We will be getting a full review today, but it looks like his foot is broken and will require surgery which could mean a lay-off of four, five, six months or maybe longer.

Former All Black U20 captain Jake Heenan is expected to take over the No 7 jersey, having made his first start last weekend on the blindside, and Lam has not ruled out bringing in another back row player as cover.

“We have Jake (Heenan) who is a seven first and foremost, Aaron Conneely, Rory Maloney, who is straight out of school. It doesn’t help that Eoin McKeon is still out injured, so we have two experienced guys who had expected to feature a lot for us now unavailable.”

Lam is awaiting results of a scan on hooker Jason Harris-Wright who damaged a bicep in Saturday’s game, and will miss this week’s tie against the Ospreys, while Dave McSharry and Denis Buckley are unavailable.