Almost two years after he celebrated a fifth Shute Shield triumph with his beloved Sydney Uni, Paddy Ryan has found himself unexpectedly pulling on the blue and gold again.
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On Saturday the Tamworth product answered an SOS to play for his former side in their Shute Shield clash against Southern Districts after 12 players across first and second grade were forced to self isolate.
As he awaits the green light to return to Japan - Ryan is hoping to have all of that sorted out soon - the former Waratahs prop has been training with his old club for a couple of months.
The plan was that if he was feeling good and "it was the right decision with my body" he would have a run for them at some stage.
But he was looking at a bit further down the track.
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Then last week he got a call from Uni co-coach Michael Hodge.
"He kind of said it would be good to have someone a bit older in the team, so I was more than happy to jump in," he said.
"It was good to run out there. They're a great group of boys."
He ended up only playing the first half after copping a bit of a knock to his calf half way through.
"We got to half time and the physio looked at it and they had a fresh front rower.." Ryan said.
His first game since mid-February when the Top League was cancelled, it was a bit of a rude awakening.
He joked that after the first 20 minutes he was looking around wondering if he was playing at Johannesburg or Pretoria he was so short of breath.
The students went down in a thriller with Southern Districts scoring two late tries to snatch a 32-31 win and end their 12-game Shute Shield winning run.
Not where he expected to be, Ryan has enjoyed his time back at the club, but is looking forward to getting back over to Japan and linking up with the Munakata Sanix Blues as he continues to embrace the opportunities the post-Super Rugby chapter of his career has presented.
"This year it looked like I was going to manage to play Japan and a bit of America as well, and that would be the plan again if the opportunity arose," he said.
"But as we can all imagine in these kind of times we're not taking anything for granted so I'll just wait and see what happens."
He is aiming to get back to Japan in time to be "up and running" in late September/early October but is still waiting for a few clearances and to secure a flight.
