How Tommy O’Donnell came back early from horrific hip injury

By Stephen Barry

Tommy O’Donnell has revealed how he managed to return to action ahead of schedule after a hip dislocation.

The Munsterman made his first competitive appearance as a replacement against Leinster on Sunday, less than five months after dislocating his hip on international duty against Wales.

The openside flanker had to wait two months to see whether surgery was necessary, as the area around the injury healed.

Irish rugby fans will be absolutely thrilled with this picture as Tommy O'Donnell is back after his injury #MunVLei pic.twitter.com/ECDY1Gd8XM

— Inpho Photography (@Inphosports) December 27, 2015

However his natural powers of recovery took over, enabling him to return to training last month and play 20 minutes of competitive rugby before the end of 2015.

“When we got the first scan, it was about two weeks after it happened,” said O’Donnell.

“There was a lot of swelling, a lot of things clogging up the MRI. They gave me six weeks to go away, let everything come down and let the muscles and tendons start to heal back.

O’Donnell resumed non-contact training in late November.

“Obviously I enjoyed my time being off and I recovered very well. I must be a good healer!

“When we came back, the scan was very positive. All the bruising had resolved itself and the tendons and ligaments had started to knit back.

“The surgeon was of the opinion that if you don’t have to go in there (to the operating theatre), you don’t. And that’s what he did.”

O’Donnell described the injury, which he sustained in Ireland’s first Rugby World Cup warm-up game, as a one-in-one-thousand freak accident.

“In the last few minutes of the game, I bobbled the ball, fell in the wrong position with two guys on my back and my hip had nowhere to go but pop out.

“(It was) a freak accident and completely wouldn’t happen again in a thousand tries, but that’s the way the ball bobbles sometimes.”

Now that he's fully recovered, he'll be hoping to help Munster to end their five-game losing streak against Ulster on Saturday.