Graham Rowntree admits Joey Carbery is facing 'a few months' out following surgery

Carbery’s wrist injury, sustained at Benetton last weekend, resulted in the Ireland international 10 requiring surgery in the next few days.

CARBERY BLOW: Munster Head Coach Graham Rowntree confirms Joey Carbery will be out for a few months. Pic Credit ©INPHO/Ben Brady

Graham Rowntree praised his young players’ ability to step up to the plate following Munster’s 45-14 victory over Dragons as he admitted Joey Carbery is facing a “few months” on the sidelines.

Head coach Rowntree handed academy fly-half Tony Butler his first senior start in this BKT URC round-three contest on Saturday evening after scans on Carbery’s wrist injury, sustained six days earlier at Benetton, resulted in the Ireland international 10 requiring surgery.

The 28-year-old will go under the knife in the next few days and speaking after the bonus-point win over the Dragons, the Munster boss said: “He’s having an operation this week and it’s going to be a few months at least.”

Carbery’s injury is the latest setback in a difficult period for the playmaker, who was out of action for 13 months in 2020-21 with wrist and ankle issues and then, having returned to Munster and Ireland colours, was overlooked for last season’s Six Nations and the summer’s World Cup training squad.

Carbery also lost the Munster No.10 jersey to Jack Crowley for the run-in to the URC title-winning campaign last spring and Rowntree paid tribute to the fly-half’s resilience.

“He’s been exceptional. He was obviously disappointed at the end of last season but he was still giving to the group. He’s come back in and he’s trained well. He picked up a quad strain early in pre-season but he recovered from that and he’s been great around the group, leading things and I was really pleased with him until he picked up this wrist injury last weekend.

“He’ll be out for a period of time, I’m not going to lie, but he’ll deal with it, he has done before.”

Rowntree was more upbeat about Munster’s seven tries to two victory over the Dragons on a rainy night in Cork, a win achieved with the help of seven academy players in the matchday 23 and which marked a return to form following the previous Sunday’s 13-13 draw at Benetton.

The only negative in the bonus-point success was an injury to wing Calvin Nash, who had led the try-scoring with a double but whose night was ended in the act of scoring his second.

“Satisfied,” was the head coach’s assessment of his team’s performance. “We had some new combinations, some young men. We had a short week and it got a bit sticky at 17-7 at half-time.

“They are a very good team around the breakdown, they mauled well and their counter-attack was very good so to come through that, we did some very good things without being perfect.

“There’s a lot of stuff we can do better but that’s under our control – our accuracy around some of our strike moves. But I’m pleased.”