Positive thinking paying off as Tommy O’Donnell revels in return

It took a few weeks for the intense physical pain to relent, and a lot longer for the disappointment of missing out on his place in the Rugby World Cup to dissipate.

But now he is back in action more than a month earlier than expected, Tommy O’Donnell finds himself capable of looking philosophically on the posterior hip dislocation that threatened to end his rugby career at the age of 26.

“Say, I finished rugby and was left with a bad hip — there’s a lot worse things in life, so I was very happy to get back playing, and that’s why it was easy to deal with it mentally,” said the Tipperary man yesterday, happy that he suffered no ill-effects from his 20-minute appearance for Munster against Leinster on Sunday.