Andrew Conway fit and 'ready to go' after 12-month knee injury

After more than a year on the sidelines, Andrew Conway is fully fit and ready play.

The winger had to sit and watch over the last 12 months as Ireland won a Test series in New Zealand and followed it up with a Six Nations Grand Slam, while he also had a front row seat to Munster's epic journey to the URC title.

Having had surgery in the summer of 2022 on a recurring issue, his comeback was continually put on hold until a further operation in January of this year, which ultimately ruled him out of the entire season.

But after returning to full training with Munster this summer, the Ireland international says he's fit and available for work, ahead of his province's first pre-season game against Leinster on Friday 8 September.

"Yeah, ready to go now, thankfully. It's been a long, complex journey," he told the RTÉ Rugby podcast.

Conway initially suffered the knee injury during the 2022 Six Nations, but returned after just over two months to feature in his province's final two games of the season.

His surgery that summer ruled him out of Ireland's tour of New Zealand, and although he had penciled in a return by the end of October, a number of setbacks saw him undergoing a second procedure in the new year.

"Between June and January was the toughest time, there were signs we were going in the right direction, but I didn't have any experience in a pretty big operation and the recovery and what it should feel like," he said.

"I’ve loads of experience in being fit and dealing with knocks and pushing through them and sucking it up at times and playing through pain at times. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, but between surgery one and surgery two it just never got to a place where we put in a good body of work.

"There was always a