World Cup-winning lock Jean Kleyn made his long-awaited return for Munster, off the bench against Connacht, last week.

On Saturday he will continue the long road back to top form and a potential Bok recall, as the Irish province visit Stade Marcel-Deflandre for a Round of 16 Champions Cup clash against La Rochelle.

The clash against Connacht marked Kleyn’s first appearance for the Irish province in five months.

The 31-year-old sustained a torn quad muscle during the Springboks’ 2024 end-of-year tour.

Kleyn played a mere six matches since making his return from a 10-month absence due to knee and eye injuries before suffering a third injury on Test duty in November.

“Yeah, 2024, three ops. It’s a long year,” Kleyn said.

“I think these things are cyclical, man. I honestly believe that’s just the way rugby works.

“You have three or four good seasons or good years where everything is going well and you’re playing game after game, you enjoy it and then it just takes one thing to set off a chain reaction.

“It was the same after 2019. Going into Christmas, I did my neck against Racing [92], and I was at the point where I thought ‘I don’t even know if this is worth it anymore.’

“Then the global pandemic hit, and six months later, I’m back playing and this is the best thing ever.

“I got so much clarity through the pandemic about how enjoyable a profession it is to be a rugby player.

“It’s the same now. I was saying to the boys there last week that it was the first week in months I was enjoying being a rugby player because when you’re injured, it’s just terrible.

“Then last week, just being part of it again, you just realise we’re so blessed to be playing a sport we grew up playing as kids for fun as a profession. It’s incredible. What a privilege.

“Injuries give a lot of perspective. You learn that as you progress throughout your career.”

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Kleyn doubted if he would ever play again after suffering a fourth cranial nerve palsy.

“There were a few points when I thought that’s probably the end of rugby for me,” he said.

“So essentially, what we think happened is that I hit the back of my head off the ground.

“It was definitely in a game, and then it’s a nerve palsy, so then it’s the same as when you paralyse a nerve in your arm, and your arm stops working, except with this, a very tiny nerve controls one small muscle in your right eye.

“I paralysed a nerve that pulled my right eye down when I looked left.

“So, what was happening was that every time that I looked past neutral, the picture would split, and the further I looked left, the worse it got.

“Now, in fairness, I got back to the point where I was training fully, and I’d sort of made peace with the fact that ‘if this doesn’t come right, I’m going to keep going through it.

“I’m going to keep playing and I’m going to learn to adapt.’

“I don’t think it would have been very easy, but I got to the point where I was in full training and things were going fairly well but we just decided to get the op and fix it because we had to wait.

“With that specific injury you have to wait a certain amount of time before they’ll operate because there is a chance of nerve regeneration where it fixes itself and if you operate and then it fixes itself you’re sort of buggering the whole thing again.

“But yeah, there were a couple of low points again there where I was, like, ‘this might be the end’.

Then you go through that and you come out the other side, and you’re like: ‘Do you know what, I’ll just make it work’.

“It was very disorientating to start with, especially as I hadn’t a clue what was going on.

“But in fairness to the medical team, they nailed it down pretty much immediately.

“By the Monday when I came in and in fairness to [Doctor] Jamie Kearns, he spotted it immediately.

“He was like: ‘That’s exactly what it is.’ Then we obviously did a lot of testing, and that came out exactly as it was.”

The former Ireland international described the condition to watching a vertically split screen.

His vision, however, has been perfectly restored three weeks post-op.

“When I had the surgery, it was fairly brutal, but within a week, I was starting to see massive improvement, and three weeks later I played.

“It’s a minorly invasive procedure as well. The doctor who performed it, a South African doctor called Jill de Villiers, she was phenomenal, very good to work with.

“The high point was getting back to playing because as I said, there was obviously a low point.”

He rejects the notion he is in “bonus territory”.

“This weekend is what I’ve been working toward for the last five months.

“That’s where you started. You get an injury, and it’s ‘okay, so what’s my timeline and when am I getting back?’ And you go: ‘That’s the target.’

“In terms of bonus territory, this is the bread and butter, this is what I’ve been working for.

“Bonus territory might be if I get to 36 and I’m still firing on all cylinders.

“Then I’ll start thinking: ‘Okay, now I’m in bonus territory.’ But I think everything up to here is worked for and earned.”

Source: Irish Examiner