![\"salesi-rayasi-and-ciaran-frawley-contest-a-high-ball\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/1779787389_431_.jpeg\")
\n Nick Elliott \/ INPHO<\/p>\n
MACK HANSEN HAS been ruled out of Ireland\u2019s summer trip to Australia and New Zealand for the inaugural Nations Championship.<\/p>\n
The winger has been out of action since December, when he underwent surgery for a troublesome foot injury.<\/p>\n
Connacht have extended their season with a remarkable run of eight wins in nine games to reach the URC quarter-finals but head coach Stuart Lancaster said there is no chance of Hansen making it back even if they went all the way to the final.<\/p>\n
And he confirmed that Hansen is not being considered for the summer tour to Australia and New Zealand, and that the best scenario is to have Hansen back for pre-season duty.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, he\u2019s ruled out. He\u2019s running now, up and down the pitch, but he\u2019s not running around with a rugby ball in his hand,\u201d said Lancaster.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo hopefully he\u2019s going to come back into pre-season. He\u2019s still got a lot of markers to hit and boxes to tick, but he\u2019s definitely moving in the right direction.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s very positive about everything, it\u2019s a coordinated relationship with Ireland and the Ireland medical team and the physio teams and everything, so it\u2019s all on plan, all on track, and yeah, there\u2019s no reason why Mack shouldn\u2019t come back a better player.\u201d<\/p>\n
Next season will see Connacht back in the Champions Cup with a squad bolstered by Lancaster\u2019s first signings, the biggest of which is the move by Ciar\u00e1n Frawley from Leinster to rejoin his former coach.<\/p>\n
And Lancaster agreed that the superb cameo produced off the bench by Frawley for Leinster in the Champions Cup final on Saturday is exactly what he\u2019s looking for when the 28-year-old arrives in Galway next season.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously it was difficult circumstances for anyone to come on in, but I thought he did really well,\u201d added Lancaster.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe definitely tried to get the game moving and tried to develop the attack. Sometimes, it\u2019s a different pressure, or less pressure, when you\u2019re coming on, and the scoreline is what it is, it\u2019s a lot of different starting.<\/p>\n
\n Nick Elliott \/ INPHO<\/p>\n
Nick Elliott \/ INPHO \/ INPHO\n<\/p>\n
\u201cBut I know\u00a0Ciar\u00e1n well enough, I\u2019ve coached him since he was 18, so I know him very well, and I know he\u2019ll be looking forward to the opportunity to come here and put his mark down as a 10 for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lancaster made it clear when he announced Frawley\u2019s signing that he was bringing him to Connacht to play at out-half, a position where he has not started for Leinster for over a year.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that\u2019s what he\u2019s been wanting to put his hand up for, both from a club perspective, but also for the national perspective as well.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got Josh Ioane who has the ability to play in the back three, and obviously it was around the time of Jack Carty\u2019s decision to retire, so there was a natural opportunity came up, and it just happened to be right place, right time.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, delighted to have him, but I suspect he\u2019ll be on the, the Ireland tour and the realities of that Ireland tour it will still be in progress before we even start pre-season, so he\u2019s not going to get to us until end of August, September.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MACK HANSEN HAS been ruled out of Ireland\u2019s summer trip to Australia and New Zealand for the inaugural…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":467530,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,3654,112],"class_list":["post-467529","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467529","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=467529"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467529\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/467530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=467529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=467529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=467529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}