Injury, the bane of a sportman's life quite often arrives unannounced. Simon Easterby had arguably been Ireland's outstanding forward in the Six Nations Championship of the 1999-2000 season. That summer his thoughts would have drifted to 12 months time when the Lions would tour Australia. It would make the pre-season grind more palatable.

Fit, focused and looking forward to the future, he had nearly completed a bleep test when those aspirations vanished in a relatively innocuous manner. "It was August 2000 and I was doing a bleep test at Llanelli; routine stuff. I thought I had a couple of more levels in me - he was on level 14 at the time - and didn't feel hugely tired.

"I did it on a turn as I pushed away. It was quite near the end of the session." Easterby had snapped his Achilles tendon. It would be almost 10 months before he played a competitive game. The intervening period taught him a great deal about himself, not least that enthusiasm has to be tempered and that patience is a cherished virtue.

"I had the operation a couple of days later and was in plaster for seven weeks. Within a week of coming out of the plaster, I re-ruptured it, trying to do too much. I had gone to Lilleshall and they realised that I had obviously done further damage to the original injury.

"I went back to the surgeon and they checked it. They couldn't tell a lot from the scan because the area was particularly inflamed, a lot of scar tissue around it. They put me in plaster for three more weeks and decided to open me up yet again. On doing so they discovered that the tendon had started to reattach so no further surgery was required.

"They did though put the foot in plaster for another six weeks; I suppose in total I was about 16 weeks in plaster. I realised that I would have to take it easy. I was originally hoping to be back involved around February/March 2001.

"Even at that point I had another four weeks on crutches. The hardest part was learning how to walk again. I went to Lilleshall again, and would go back there three times over the next few months. The worst part of the physio was trying to get back the range of movement in the foot. One day you would do a lot and would be feeling great only to wake up the next morning and be back to square one because you had done too much.

"Mentally as well as physically you had to be prepared to take a backward step at times to go forward." Easterby worked with a freelance physiotherapist in Wales and while a little sceptical about the isokinetics was back in training by April 2001.

"I had no real thoughts of playing but within a couple of weeks I had made sufficient progress to play for Llanelli Under 21s. I then played the last two league games for the club. From a personal point of view it gave me a lot of confidence going into the off season knowing that I had got a couple of games under my belt. I knew the rehabilitation had been successful. "

On Saturday he resumes his international career when lining out at blindside flanker for Ireland against Scotland at Murrayfield. He won't ever complain about training again, the grinding fitness work or the toll it takes on the body. Life on the other side of the sideline holds even less appeal.