Today marked the end of a long road for Cian Hanley.

The 20-year-old Irish recruit joined in on his first integrated group session this morning after battling injury – first an ACL and then groin problems – since being drafted to the Lions as an international rookie at the end of 2014.

“I’ve been working pretty hard to get out there. It was my first time in the group warmup and to have the boys get around me, it was good,” said Hanley.

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“I did the full warmup with them and then I was doing some kicking on the run which I haven’t done a lot of in the past two years and then some tackling technique.”

“It’s been a long road. I had my groin reconstruction and then had a lot of growth plate issues and now it’s just trying to progress myself in. I'm doing little bits here and there and hopefully will join the main group at the end of January.”

Hanley will wear the number 11 jumper in 2017 that was most recently worn by his older brother Pearce, who was traded to the Gold Coast SUNS in October.

READ: Cian to wear number 11

“The number 11 was always the number we wore back home in Ireland. To take over from Pearce is a big honour, hopefully I get to run out in it this year.”