Bleyendaal injury vexes Foley

Munster head coach Anthony Foley is anxiously waiting on medical reports from Canterbury as to the seriousness of new signing Tyler Bleyendaal’s neck injury.

The 24-year-old inside centre and fly-half, a former New Zealand U20 captain, had been due to arrive in Ireland at the end of his province’s ITM Cup campaign next month, having signed a three-year contract with Munster last May.

Reports from New Zealand, though, suggest Bleyendaal has suffered a prolapsed disc in his neck that will require surgery, leaving Foley’s plans for a strong option at No 12 and cover at out-half for Ian Keatley and JJ Hanrahan somewhat in doubt.

“I knew for the last couple of weeks that he had been struggling in terms of the seriousness of the neck injury,” Foley said last night. “I only found out a couple of weeks ago and when he didn’t play last weekend I was under the impression he would have been out for a couple of weeks but obviously there are concerns about him.

“Our thoughts are with him and hopefully he gets the right opinion and the right course of action so he can play.

“From what I gather it could be three or four weeks’ old. It is a weakness down his arm and it got to a point where he couldn’t play and they put some action in. We have to find out how bad it is and our medical staff are on that, so I’ll be reliant on them.”

Without a full medical update, Foley said he was unable to put a timescale on Bleyendaal’s recovery time.

“At the moment we’re in conversation with Canterbury around what his treatment is. We’ve got the discs and stuff en route to make sure that we have a look at it, we’re getting them read and that it’s the proper treatment.

“At the moment we’re reliant a lot on what Canterbury are doing and we want to get our handle on that as well, so to be honest with you it’s a big moment for the lad, and it’s a big moment in these kind of situations.

“We’re not going to rush anything, we want him to have the best treatment and make sure he is properly looked after. It’s still a player’s career and it’s still a young man and he has got a lot in front of him. Obviously he is an undoubted talent, a fella we want to have on board and we’ll do our best to make that happen.”

Similarly, the Munster head coach would not be drawn on whether the province would move to sign a replacement, either short-term or longer.

“We’ll find out what the situation is first before we go making decisions. I don’t think beyond the point of just looking out for the young fella because we thought he was coming to us two years ago and he pulled out with a [thigh] injury back then, we just want to make this happen for him.”

“At the moment our thoughts are making sure the player is properly looked after and we hold up our end of the bargain.”