JJ Hanrahan concussion adds to Munster's issues at out-half

Munster face Leicester Tigers in a pre-season match at Virgin Media Park at 7.15pm on Friday

JJ Hanrahan being ruled out for the pre-season game against Leicester adds to Munster's issues at out-half with Jack Crowley and Will Harrison already unavailable. Pic: Emilian Baldow/Sportsfile

Updated at 15.57

Munster’s options at out-half are being squeezed further before the start of the new season with news that JJ Hanrahan has sustained a concussion and is unavailable for this weekend’s pre-season meeting with Leicester Tigers in Cork.

Jack Crowley is currently sidelined until the New Year at least with a lower limb vascular injury while new signing Will Harrison is out for now with a reaggravation of a knee injury suffered in recent weeks.

That leaves the young pair of Tom Wood and Charlie O’Shea as options at ten with suggestions online that the former may also be carrying an injury, although head coach Clayton McMillan has confirmed that Wood "picked up a bang" in an internal hot-out at Crescent College Comprehensive" recently.

"It's a reoccurrence of an injury that he just managed conservatively last year," he said. "So we'll get that looked at. Hopefully, it's not bad. He's walking around. He's telling us it's fine, but we’ve got to do our due diligence here. So hopefully, good news tomorrow.

"But it's certainly our intention to have him play a lot of games, including with Jack's injury and the unknown status around his return to play, albeit we're hopeful that it'll be in that post-Christmas window. That represents a great opportunity for our young guys to have a crack.”

Hooker Max Clein is also unavailable with a neck injury although that is balanced by the news that the province’s new Springbok hooker Marnus van der Merwe has returned to full training and took part in that Crescent outing in the last week.

Van der Merwe, who signed from Scarlets, carried a calf injury into the summer.

Alex Nankivell was also involved in that Crescent outing last week, having missed the pre-season game away to La Rochelle late last month with a knock.

Munster face Tigers at Virgin Med

McMillan has expressed his confidence that "there'll be more numbers on deck" for the season opener the weekend after next.

First up are the Tigers at Virgin Media Park at 7.15pm this Friday while the ‘A’ side goes up against Connacht Eagles on the Thomond Park back pitch at 1pm on the same day. The season begins against Glasgow in Limerick eight days later.