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Andy Farrell issues update on 3 injured Ireland players
By Ian Cameron
Ireland head coach Andy Farrell has issued an injury update on James Lowe, Mack Hansen and James Ryan following his side's heavy defeat of Scotland in the final game of Pool B at the Rugby World Cup.
Ireland came away with a 36-14 win, but now have to count the injury toll of what was a feisty contest at the Stade de France.
Lowe didn't return for the second half following a nasty eye injury, while Hansen didn't return from a HIA. Ryan looked to have aggravated a niggly wrist injury that saw him start on the bench.
"Mack went off with a HIA and felt his calf straight away, so we got him off," said Farrell. "James Ryan has a knock on his wrist, which we have to assess.
"Lowe got a bang in the eye and couldn't see much, but his vision came back towards the end of the game, which was good."
Scotland head coach Gregor Townsend lauded the Irish performance, which was far more comfortable than the final scoreboard might have suggested.
"They were very clinical, very accurate, and I thought they put in a huge shift defensively when they had a bit of pressure in that first 20 minutes. They’re an outstanding team and they showed that tonight.
"Yes, we had a bit of pressure. And Ireland held us out and credit to them – when you play the top teams, you’ve got to take your opportunities. We didn’t do that in the first quarter, and that was probably our best period in the game. And when the game was lost, we did come back into it. We’ve got to make sure we put points on the board and Ireland certainly did that tonight.
"No, I’m proud of the effort in that second half. The game had gone away from us in the first half so we focused on winning back respect and the players’ effort in the second was a mark of who they are, to score two tries. We’ll take a little bit of out of that but we’re very disappointed with the result and the first-half performance but a lot of the credit goes to Ireland – they were very, very good."
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Latest Comments
Well that sux.
Go to commentsLike I've said before about your idea (actually it might have been something to do with mine, I can't remember), I like that teams will a small sustainable league focus can gain the reward of more consistent CC involvement. I'd really like the most consistent option available.
Thing is, I think rugby can do better than footballs version. I think for instance I wanted everyone in it to think they can win it, where you're talking about the worst teams not giving up because they are so far off the pace we get really bad scoreline when that and giving up to concentrate on the league is happening together.
So I really like that you could have a way to remedy that, but personally I would want my model to not need that crutch. Some of this is the same problem that football has. I really like the landscape in both the URC and Prem, but Ireland with Leinster specifically, and France, are a problem IMO. In football this has turned CL pool stages in to simply cash cow fixtures for the also ran countries teams who just want to have a Real Madrid or ManC to lose to in their pool for that bumper revenue hit. It's always been a comp that had suffered for real interest until the knockouts as well (they might have changed it in recent years?).
You've got some great principles but I'm not sure it's going to deliver on that hard hitting impact right from the start without the best teams playing in it. I think you might need to think about the most minimal requirement/way/performance, a team needs to execute to stay in the Champions Cup as I was having some thougt about that earlier and had some theory I can't remember. First they could get entry by being a losing quarter finalist in the challenge, then putting all their eggs in the Champions pool play bucket in order to never finish last in their pool, all the while showing the same indifference to their league some show to EPCR rugby now, just to remain in champions. You extrapolate that out and is there ever likely to be more change to the champions cup that the bottom four sides rotate out each year for the 4 challenge teams? Are the leagues ever likely to have the sort of 'flux' required to see some variation? Even a good one like Englands.
I'd love to have a table at hand were you can see all the outcomes, and know how likely any of your top 12 teams are going break into Champions rubyg on th back it it are?
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