Mcnally makes scoring return but Irish edge closer to the drop
Most London Irish players cannot wait for their dismal season to end, but not lock Josh Mcnally, who is happy just to be playing rugby again after having undergone corrective surgery for a hole in the heart in November.
Mcnally thought his rugby career might be over when he suffered a stroke driving back from Irish’s away defeat to Saracens at the end of October before the heart defect, a common condition that often goes undetected, was diagnosed. After three months recuperating from the operation, Mcnally made his comeback for the RAF against Richmond earlier this month.
He marked his first Premiership game in almost five months with a try after just 10 minutes of this frenetic contest.
“The whole story of having a stroke and struggling to find a cause was the biggest thing,” said Mcnally. “If you couldn’t find a cause, then you struggled to find anyone to say, ‘Yes, you are fit to play’ because it could happen again.
“Thankfully, we sought some of the best medical advice and found that I had a hole in the heart which is the reason the clot had got through.
“We got that closed, and I had a three-month recovery period, and I’ve got back on the park since.
“It’s been a long process but it feels like a distant memory now. A lot of people are born with a hole in the heart. Most people take their first breath and it shuts, but for some it doesn’t. It’s quite common.
“Not many people will push themselves to elite athlete levels of max heart rate, so they won’t find it.
“I played 80 minutes against Sar- acens and, driving home, my heart had expanded with all the stress of the game and the clot managed to get through.
“I could easily have got through my whole life with loads of nearmisses but nothing ever happening. I was just unlucky that a clot got through and caused a stroke but lucky that the stroke was so minor, because it could have been a lot worse. Thankfully, it was a bullet dodged and I crack on.”
Despite Mcnally’s presence, Irish surrendered a 17-point lead and suffered another damaging defeat in their first match under the new coaching team of Declan Kidney and Les Kiss, edging them closer to the relegation precipice.
However, Mcnally added: “I was at London Welsh when they went down, but this is a completely different group.
“We are sticking together.”