Court likely to replace Buckley

TOM COURT looks the likely beneficiary of Tony Buckley’s misfortune after the Munster prop was ruled out of Saturday’s clash with Samoa and rated doubtful for the remaining November internationals due to a hip flexor injury.

Rob Kearney is rated a major doubt for the Samoa game due to a knee contusion suffered while scoring Ireland’s final try against the Springboks, while reserve full-back Gavin Duffy will not train this week due to a back problem.

However, Ireland manager Paul McNaughton yesterday confirmed Geordan Murphy is “unlikely” to be called up for this week’s clash, as he is due to lead club side Leicester Tigers out against Australia tonight.

John Muldoon has been added to Connacht’s ranks for this evening’s clash with the touring Islanders in order to afford the backrower game time, while Isaac Boss, Mike Ross, Fergus McFadden, Chris Henry and Damien Varley have all joined the national squad in advance of the Samoa match.

McNaughton indicated that Court had done enough in his 30 minutes against the Springboks to be selected on Saturday, saying: “There’s every chance Tom could start, he can play both sides and we’re looking at those combinations. All the coaches thought he did well in the last 30 minutes. He’s definitely in contention.”

Meanwhile hooker Rory Best believes the entire pack must accept responsibility for the disastrous line-out performance against the world champions which he described as “below Magners League standard”.

Ireland’s set-piece collapsed under pressure from Victor Matfield, Bakkies Botha and Juan Smith in the Aviva Stadium defeat and led to the backline being starved of possession, as well as Smith’s intercept try.

And while Best was not shirking his responsibilities yesterday, he said it was up to all eight of Ireland’s forwards to face up to the challenge of reviving their ability to win ball from touch.

“It’s obviously difficult,” he said, “It’s like any facet of the game. Whenever you’re under pressure, it always seems a lot harder. When things are going well, your confidence is up and you seem to move a lot quicker.

“South Africa have a very good defensive lineout. As the game went on, they got the edge and were moving particularly quicker along the ground. That doesn’t excuse anything because we’re still very, very disappointed with the way the lineout functioned.”

Best wasn’t in the mood to make any excuses in Ireland’s Killiney base yesterday and he acknowledged that the visitors were by far the better team and deserved their win.

“You have to give credit to South Africa as well,” he said. “They performed better than us on the day. .

“But we’re professional athletes, professional players and the squad has been together for a long time. So none of those excuses count for us. We just didn’t arrive at the ground on the day for whatever reason.”

Ireland have been accused of losing the physical battle with the ‘Boks, but Best disagrees and says the team fronted up, but didn’t control the ball when they had it.

“I think defensively in the first 20, it was strong,” he said. “We gave away the intercept which was sloppy. But defensively I thought the intensity was there, we were making some good hits.

“They’re a big physical side looking to take us on. Whoever has the ball dictates the tempo. In the last 20 minutes, we got a little more ball, through counter-attack maybe they were kicking looser because they felt the game was won. In terms of dictating the pace, it wasn’t lack of effort, we couldn’t get enough ball to keep it and force our game upon them.”