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Ireland's scrum half shortage as Leinster confirm McGrath knee ligament injury
By Jack Davies
Ireland are looking short at scrum half ahead of the Six Nations.
Leinster scrum-half Luke McGrath will miss Ireland's Six Nations campaign after being ruled out for up to eight weeks with a knee ligament injury.
The 25-year-old sustained the issue in Saturday's 29-13 Champions Cup victory over Toulouse and was replaced by Jamison Gibson-Park midway through the second half.
Scrum half Paddy Patterson has been registered to Leinster's Champions Cup squad, taking the place of Nick McCarthy.
Ireland's chief back-up scrum half Kieran Marmion underwent surgery on an ankle injury in November, which ruled Connacht player out until February.
John Cooney also pulled out of Ulster's Champions Cup game against Racing 92 on Saturday with a back complaint.
It means that Munster's Conor Murray is the only fully fit scrum half among Ireland's leading number 9's.
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Johnny Sexton will also be missing Leinster's trip to Wasps as he continues to recover from his own knee injury but is expected to be back in the fold imminently.
"Johnny has been rehabbing a tendon in his knee and the week's not long enough, he just ran out of time," said Leinster scrum coach John Fogarty. "He's not far off at all but unfortunately for us, he's run out of time.
"We've made the decision, so Ross [Byrne] is there to cover. For Johnny, I don't see it being a huge issue for him going forward. He just needs to be in the right space physically so he can perform.
"That's our focus here, we want our players to be in the best physical condition so they can perform for us and for the national team. Johnny will get himself right and will be back."
Devin Toner (ankle), Sean O'Brien (arm) and Robbie Henshaw (hamstring) will all return to full training this week, while Fergus McFadden (hamstring) begins a lighter schedule.
Rob Kearney (quad) and Dan Leavy (calf) are to undergo further assessment.
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Latest Comments
I understand, but England 30 years ago were a set piece focused kick heavy team not big on using backs.
Same as now.
South African sides from any period will have a big bunch of forwards smashing it up and a first five booting everything in their own half.
NZ until recently rarely if ever scrummed for penalties; the scrum is to attack from, broken play, not structured is what we’re after.
Same as now.
These are ways of playing very ingrained into the culture.
If you were in an English club team and were off to Fiji for a game against a club team you’d never heard of and had no footage of, how would you prepare?
For a forward dominated grind or would you assume they will throw the ball about because they are Fijian?
A Fiji way. An English way.
An Australian way depends on who you’ve scraped together that hasn’t been picked off by AFL or NRL, and that changes from generation to generation a lot of the time.
Actually, maybe that is their style. In fact, yes they have a style.
Nevermind. Fuggit I’ve typed it all out now.
Go to commentsSouth African teams need to start prioritising the Champions Cup for sure. They need to use depth in the URC.
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