After scoring three quarters of Edinburgh’s points in their 32-20 Pro14 defeat by Ulster on Friday Duncan Weir revealed how ill health contributed to his ‘ruthless’ axing by their management that left him looking for a new club for next season.
While he is not ready to say where he is going the international stand off says he now has a new contract in place, but being told he was being released came after a nightmareish spell on the sidelines after the treatment he received for a groin problem went badly wrong.
Weir had begun the season as Edinburgh’s first choice play-maker, but what was expected to be a straightforward procedure that would require around a month out, cost him a key section of the season as new head coach Richard Cockerill was making his mind up about the changes required to improve the team’s competitiveness.
“I had a slight groin strain, I got advised from a specialist to get a steroid injection, from that injection I was that ‘lucky’ guy, the one in a thousand chance that got an infection from the needle,” Weir said wryly.
“I was on antibiotics for three months from that. It just wasted away everything in my lower body. It was about rebuilding myself back up. It was a very frustrating time and it felt like all my luck was behind me.
“I was pretty mobile the whole time and then all of a sudden this infection came and I was on crutches for three weeks and struggling to get out of bed to do anything. It was nothing to do with rugby. It was just my pot luck.
“It was the nature of the infection. It spread round by pelvis ring so it was not the best of times, but I have come back stronger and fitter. It is just my pot-luck.”
As brutal as the decision not to offer him a new deal may seem in those circumstances the chunky 26-year-old former Glasgow Warrior, who looked in better shape than at any time in his career when scampering close to 60 metres for his first half try, has been around long enough to know that is the nature of the business he is in.
“Ultimately it is just sport,” he said.
“I was determined to come back and play well and show i was a very good player. Coming back I had to get a job somewhere else, but it is a ruthless industry and that is just the way it works sometimes.”
He consequently sees absolutely no disconnect between that situation and, like Friday’s half-back partner Sam Hidalgo-Clyne and inside centre Phil Burleigh who have both also been released, being given the responsibility by Cockerill of playing a key role to secure Edinburgh’s place in the Pro14 play-offs and next season’s European Champions Cup, both of which would be firsts for the club.
“We are certainly putting our hands forward to make the most of it,” said Weir.
“We are still Edinburgh players till the end of June. We have a huge task to do something special with this group of players and push to get in the play offs where the club has never been before.”
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