Wood’s long road to recovery

Keith Wood is an active member of the Irish tour to Australia, Tonga and Samoa, but he will not actually be playing any games. He tells Declan Colley why the tour is such an important part of his rehabilitation from long-term injury

RARELY has an injury (or in this case a succession of them) occupied the thoughts and conversations of Ireland pub soothsayers and length and breadth of the country. But Keith Wood's succession of neck and shoulder injuries has done just that, sparking hours of speculation not only about his future well-being, but about his future as a rugby player full stop.

But Wood is set to soothe the naysayers (or nay the soothsayers) with a determined effort to come back from what have obviously not been run-of-the-mill knocks. Rather, they have been full-blown career-threatening injuries but he now wants to try and put them behind him and make his mark on the World Cup.