Kidney allays O’Brien injury fears

DECLAN Kidney has poured cold water on concerns European player of the year Sean O’Brien could be ruled out of Ireland’s Rugby World Cup opener next month through injury.

The Leinster flanker suffered a bang on the knee during the second-half of Ireland’s warm-up defeat to France at the Aviva Stadium last Saturday, prompting speculation the 24-year-old would miss the September 11 Pool C opener against the US.

O’Brien was on full view yesterday at the Aviva as the Ireland squad was put through its paces in front of around 7,000 fans during an open training session. While Kidney has left him out of the match-day squad to face England he said the medial ligament damage sustained had not removed him from contention to face the Eagles in New Plymouth.

“It’s a knee injury. Medial ligament and the prognosis is that he should be available for the USA game,” Kidney said. “It happened around 55 minutes into the game on Saturday, he played the rest of it. He was fine Saturday night, he woke up Sunday morning, felt a bit tight. He had a christening on Sunday too, so it’s one of those where it wasn’t prudent to play him.”

It is unlikely O’Brien would have started against Martin Johnson’s England anyway given that Kidney needed to give game time to Ulster’s Stephen Ferris and Munster’s David Wallace, named at six and seven respectively.

Elsewhere, minor knocks have seen Rob Kearney miss out at full-back for the second week in-a-row while captain Brian O’Driscoll has also been rested to recuperate from a shoulder “stinger” he suffered against the French. Geordan Murphy comes in at full-back to win his 70th cap with Keith Earls switching from the left wing to outside centre as cover for O’Driscoll. Andrew Trimble switches wings to allow Tommy Bowe make his first start of the series on the right while Ronan O’Gara and Eoin Reddan form the half-back partnership.

As Kidney looks to continue the task of nursing his squad towards full match fitness and tournament readiness, the selections he has made point towards some careful housekeeping. Scrum-half Isaac Boss and hooker Sean Cronin will play for Leinster tonight in a pre-season friendly against Northampton while tighthead prop Tony Buckley has been sent back to Sale to get a game under his belt with his new club.

That leaves Conor Murray as the back-up number nine to Reddan, six days on from the youngster’s surprise inclusion with Rory Best covering for Flannery and Tom Court on the bench as cover.

As Kidney acknowledged, with his 30-man squad selected, it is time to move towards tournament mode and start managing the hand a coach has been dealt, such as the apparent lack of cover at openside flanker with O’Brien ruled out.

“Ferris or Denis (Leamy) could move to seven, Donnacha (Ryan) can go to six,” Kidney said. “We’ll have a number of options there. What we have to do is get used to working with the 30 when we’re on the other side of the world. I’m sure the lads there can fill in if need be.”