RUGBY:ALTHOUGH HE must be heartily sick of answering enquiries about his well-being and the latest projection for his long-awaited return, Paul O'Connell gave the clearest indication yet he ought hopefully be back playing by the end of the calendar year.

The Munster and Lions captain hasn’t played since Ireland’s concluding Six Nations defeat to Scotland at Croke Park on March 20th last, while his last appearance for Munster was in their final pool game of last season’s Heineken Cup, the 12-9 win over Northampton on January 22nd.

When O’Connell’s rare and fiendishly complicated groin problem eventually sidelined him it was then incorrectly diagnosed and thus wrongly treated, but amid the usual surfeit of wild rumours, he maintained he was on the road to recovery.

Whenever he does resume full training, the medical advice is that O’Connell should be back playing within six weeks. For the time being he is mixing plenty of rehab with some swimming, cycling and a small amount of weights.

“The injury is improving well, I’m not back in full training yet, hopefully that will happen in the next few weeks. I’ll have to do a bit of a mini pre-season as I haven’t done a lot of running since the Scotland game in March. Then hopefully get out and get a few games. Hopefully I will still be back before Christmas, but I don’t really know yet.”

Not for the first time, though he’ll hope assuredly for the last, O’Connell charted the problem at yesterday’s Heineken Cup launch in the Grand Canal Theatre in Dublin’s Docklands yesterday.

“I had an infection on my pubic bone. What happens is that when you have that your symptoms show up that you’re quite feverish, so I had plenty of bloods taken and things like that. That’s what they thought was up with me, but all my bloods came back and there was no problem.

“At the start we didn’t think there was an infection but after about six weeks that became clear. Unfortunately by then the infection had taken root quite strongly, so I had to go on IV antibiotics to get rid of that. That took quite a long time, and it took a lot out of me as well. I lost a bit of weight and things like that. It took about six weeks to get rid of it and then essentially you are left with a bone which is probably very weak. That takes about 12 weeks then to re-heal – that 12 weeks was up about a week ago. So that’s where I’m at the moment.

“I suppose a few times we thought we knew what it was, but probably didn’t exactly, even when we realised it was an infection the antibiotics didn’t get rid of it at the start. So I think it was the third bout of antibiotics I tried got rid of it. That’s where we’re at now, it’s been a bit of a struggle. The guys couldn’t have done any more than they did. It was just really unfortunate.”

He admitted that pre-season and subsequently watching games have been acutely frustrating for him, but if nothing else, the medical recovery rate is now going according to prognosis and O’Connell can see some light at the end of the tunnel.

It helped too that he became a father for the first time too, to a baby boy, Paddy, five and a half months ago.

“It’s been good fun. If I hadn’t have had the injury I would have been away for the first four weeks on tour at the start. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone to have to do it on their own at the start, so it was great to be around for that. He’s piling it on, I wish I could get a bit of his metabolism,” O’Connell quipped in relation to the sharp loss of weight he suffered.

Despite last Saturday’s defeat, O’Connell remained upbeat about what he has seen from Munster this season.

“I spoke to a few of the lads on the phone yesterday and they were all very disappointed with it. Hopefully it will focus the minds now for the next two weeks.

“I think we’re a long way ahead of where we were last year. There were a lot of disappointing things in the game which if repeated it will be a lot more than a blip, but hopefully the lads will address those during the week.”

“It’s an incredibly tough group,” said O’Connell of being paired with London Irish, Toulon and the Ospreys, “but that’s the way it always has been with Munster and it really focuses the mind on every game.

“You can’t rest for one game; you can’t take your foot off the gas for one game.”

It’s still going to be a long road back for O’Connell to rediscover Superman and there was always a fear he might never be quite the same player after having divested everything of himself into the cause of captaining the Lions.

Conceivably though, he will only be 31 later this month, the enforced absence may help refresh him and ultimately extend his career.