'I should be right around pre-season' - Mack Hansen out for season and Ireland's summer tour

LATE RETURN FOR THE MACK: Mack Hansen has confirmed that not only will he miss the rest of Connacht’s season, but he will also not be back from injury for Ireland’s inaugural Nations Championship in the summer. Pic: ©INPHO/James Crombie

Mack Hansen has confirmed that not only will he miss the rest of Connacht’s season, but he will also not be back from injury for Ireland’s inaugural Nations Championship in the summer when they will play in New Zealand and his native Australia.

The 27-year-old winger is targeting being back for pre-season training with Connacht in the summer and hitting the ground running for Stuart Lancaster’s side at the start of the 2026/27 season, a year out from the staging of the World Cup in Australia.

But Hansen, who will now miss the Nations Championship when Ireland will travel to Australia and New Zealand for games against the Wallabies, Japan and the All Blacks in July, has warned that injuries are going to increase as players keep getting bigger and stronger.

Hansen has been sidelined since before Christmas and while surgery in London on a troublesome foot injury has been successful, he said the recovery period is ‘six to seven months’.

Lancaster, who has only had Hansen for one match since he took charge of Connacht, had been holding out hope that the international might be back if they reached the Challenge Cup final in May.

But this has now been ruled out by the player when he appeared as a guest on the Tommy Tiernan Show on RTÉ on Saturday night.

“I should be right around pre-season and then hit the ground running and get into the swing of things right from the start of the new season,” he said.

Hansen told Tiernan that the most recent injury arose from a mundane incident, but it required a lot of medical treatment to correct the foot injury which has troubled him for some time.

“I wish I had a good story for you,” he added.

“I wish it was a shark bite, or something to do with saving someone. I went to pick the ball up, and as I've gone to step, I stepped on another guy's foot, and my foot just gave out.

“So, I ended up doing a few ligaments in my foot, my joints were a bit out of whack. What they've done is they've put in I think it's six screws in and a plate, a little bit of a bone graft over that, and my mid foot's just one giant bone, pretty much."

Hansen, now in his fifth season with Connacht, was ruled out of all three tests for the Lions against his native Australia last summer because of the foot injury.

He suffered a recurrence of the injury during his only appearance this season for Connacht against the Bulls in mid-October and while he marked his return to international duty with a hat-trick against Australia and also played against South Africa, the injury flared up again and the medical teams opted for surgery in an effort to resolve the issue.

"Unfortunately missed this season, but kind of get into that and then yeah, hit the ground running,” he added. 

He is under contract again next season but admitted he’s glad not to be renegotiating around now.

“If this was my last year it would be a bit of a problem. It’s not a great negotiating tool.

"I’m lucky that I have got next year as well, so I should be right around preseason and then hit the ground running and get into the swing of things right from the start.

“I think that players are getting so fast, strong, powerful, that I think people will get injured and stuff more. 

"You can go against it and say ‘well, if everyone is getting bigger and stronger then that will counteract as well’, but the impacts from when I first came over have gone up a complete other level.

“I think by the time I retire it will be a good time for me to get out."