John Ryan's gap year - The backpacking tighthead's journey from Wasps to Waikato

Have boots, will play. John Ryan is enjoying a unique rugby season.

On Saturday, the Corkman will play his 32nd game in a campaign that started out with Wasps and will end in Waikato, across ten months in which he's experienced everything rugby can throw at a player.

He has felt the anxiety of losing his job when Wasps went bust last October and the personal pride at reaching a milestone 200th appearance on his return to Munster.

He got to experience the romance of a stint with the Barbarians, and has the chance to cap it all off with a trophy, when his Chiefs take on the Crusaders in the Super Rugby Pacific final (Saturday 8.05am Irish time).

It started for Ryan back in Gloucester in September, in a game that's since been expunged from the records.

If the chips fell differently, the tighthead would be coming to the end of his first of a three-year deal at Wasps, having been let go by Munster in a short-sighted move at the end of the 2021/22 campaign.

He played four of their first five games of the season, with three starts, before the club were placed into administration in October. By the end of the month, he was back at Munster.

Having initially let Ryan go, Munster had entered the season taking a gamble at tighthead, with the only options behind veteran Stephen Archer being the inexperienced trio of Roman Salanoa, Keynan Knox and James French, who had a combined 14 starts between them.

One injury for Archer would have left the province in a real bind, which they found themselves in when the tighthead needed surgery on an ankle issue just five games into the campaign. It was a bizarre stroke of luck that Archer's injury came right as Wasps folded, and Ryan was brought back to Munster to clean up some of the mess the province