'Love Island' contestant suffers injury as new series of ITV dating show due to start - and tells of link to former star

‘Love Island' star and rugby player Ciaran Davies has suffered a painful injury, just before entering the iconic villa.

The surveyor, aged 21, from Pencoed, South Wales, was rumoured to the first contestant for series 11 of the show earlier this month - and then his participation was confirmed when ITV announced the official line-up over the bank holiday weekend.

Davies, who plays for Tondu RFC, shared with ‘The Mirror’ and other media outlets that he suffered an injury while playing in a rugby match injury just hours after finding out he was going to be on the hugely popular show - and that prevented him from doing the gym preparations he would have liked.

Discussing his selection for ‘Love Island’ and how excited he was about it, he said: "I found out, I think it was a Saturday morning, that Saturday I had a rugby game after so I was very excited but obviously all the boys around me, I can't tell anyone, then that same day I cracked my collarbone. Honestly, all I have done is make sure this is better, which it is, it's been cleared and it's completely fine."

He continued to say that he is continuing with his gym routine right up until the start of the show. The launch episode will be on Monday (June 3). He said: "I'm already back in to the gym, so I think I had about a week before I came. So honestly, I have never trained and been to the gym so hard in my entire life just to try and get into shape, get the abs showing as much as possible. So I've done a little bit but maybe not as much as I want to."

Davies also revealed that he had pretended to be a previous contestant before gaining a place on the show himself. He said: "When I was in Malia on a boys holiday I pretended to be Liam Reardon from series 7 to get into a club because they wouldn't let us in. It worked and we ended up getting a private booth and free drinks all night.", according to ’The Mirror’. He joked: "I owe him [Liam] a pint now I think!”.

A source previously said: "Ciaran caught the eye of Love Island bosses immediately. He's gorgeous with a fit athletic build that will send the girls in the villa wild, but he's also a sweet boy next door from Wales to boot. He's the kind of lad you could happily take home to your mum. He's been in talks with bosses for weeks and is set to jet out to the villa in Majorca in the coming week or so. Right now, it's unclear whether he is one of the OG line-up or a bombshell but he is a favourite with the casting team and is sure to make a big impression with viewers."

Davies originally had 3,880 followers on his Instagram page, @ciarandaviesss, but in the two weeks since he was first linked to ‘Love Island’ his follower count has increased exponentially. At the time of writing, on Thursday May 30, he now has more than 17,000 followers. His bio now reads: “I’m off to find love in the @loveisland villa!” The much-anticipated return of ‘Love Island’ is set for Monday June 3, kicking off with a multi-platform launch across ITV1, ITV2, ITVX, STV, and STV Player. The rest of the Love Island series, which is expected to last for around eight weeks, will air on ITV2 and ITVX.