Earls back to provide Irish fillip

Keith Earls will rejoin the Ireland squad at Carton House today to give head coach Declan Kidney a much-needed boost ahead of the RBS 6 Nations trip to face France in Paris on Saturday night.

Earls had been selected at outside centre to start last Sunday’s championship opener against Wales, only to be withdrawn on Thursday following the hospitalisation of his week-old daughter.

Earls missed the 23-21 defeat at home to Warren Gatland’s men, a last-gasp loss that denies the Irish the momentum they craved going into this weekend’s Stade de France clash but the return of the Munster back to the fold at their Kildare training base will help to lift the mood.

The Ireland camp reported a clean bill of health from Sunday’s Aviva Stadium thriller, meaning concerns over a bang to fly-half Jonny Sexton’s shoulder have not ruled him out of contention for this weekend.

The likelihood of Luke Fitzgerald returning to contention for selection in Paris, however, looks to be receding, given the latest update from Leinster yesterday on his neck injury. The problem, at first thought to be a crick but now determined as a disc issue, will be monitored by the Leinster medical staff and he is likely to be available “either this week or next”.

Earls is likely to be the only new face arriving in camp this week with Kidney actually paring down his squad yesterday, releasing Leinster back row Shane Jennings and Munster full-back Denis Hurley back to their provinces to get game time in this week’s Rabodirect Pro 12 matches.

The news on Earls and Fitzgerald came on a day when Ireland further counted the cost of that defeat to Wales by slipping two places in the latest IRB World Rankings, to equal their lowest ever position of eighth. Leigh Halfpenny’s last-minute penalty saw the Welsh climb two places to sixth and leave the Irish one place lower than after last year’s World Cup.

Wales will learn today, however, whether they will be hearing from last Sunday’s citing commissioner Achille Reali in relation to lock Bradley Davies’s tip tackle on Donnacha Ryan during the second half.

The Italian match official has until 5pm today to decide what the Wales coach Warren Gatland suspects will be the case and cite Davies for dangerous play after the Welshman was caught on camera lifting Ireland substitute Ryan off his feet, turned his body and then dropped him on his neck, all off the ball.

It was a tackle that deserved a red card from referee Wayne Barnes but the English official, who said he had not seen the incident, was advised by his touch judge Dave Pearson that the recommended sanction was a yellow card. That recommendation, based on Pearson’s own eye-witness account to Barnes appears to be at odds with the International Rugby Board’s own guidelines on dangerous play, repeated before the championship at a meeting in London between IRB referees’ manager Paddy O’Brien and representatives from all six teams in the tournament. Even Gatland admitting he thought his player should have seen red rather than a yellow card.