“The pressure, you have to love it. You have to stand up. That’s what you’re there for.”
There were 16 months between Johnny Holland’s last outing for Munster and his return to action, in March, against Newport Gwent Dragons.
Four games into his comeback and Holland has managed to wrest the No.10 jersey off his more experienced colleagues. The 24-year-old sparkled against Zebre and shone against Leinster.
In between, there was some hard going.
Holland was out of action for a year after badly damaging his hamstring, He says:
“I thought I tore my hamstring, which I did, but I actually ended up tearing the tendons from the bone – up the top of the hamstring. The three of them were fairly damaged.
“It was pretty much, going up to the surgeon to see how much I had damaged. It was a quick conversation because he knew the whole thing was ruptured.
“That was probably the crushing blow, going up there, with a lot of hope and coming out absolutely deflated.”
Holland re-habbed successfully only to pick up tendinopathy – a pinching pain that occurs when the repaired tendons take on heavy loads again.
Holland is expected to hold off the challenge of Ian Keatley to start as out-half against Connacht this Saturday.
“The Sportsground is a tough place to go… Connacht are playing some fantastic rugby and scoring a lot of tries,” he said.
