Schmidt checks on walking wounded ahead of Samoa clash

Joe Schmidt was today set to assess his personnel options for the Guinness Series as he received injury reports on a number of key frontline Ireland players.

The former Leinster boss faces his first Test match as Ireland head coach in 13 days when Samoa visit the Aviva Stadium and he will have endured a weekend of watching Lions Sean O’Brien, Paul O’Connell, Rory Best and Keith Earls either withdraw from provincial duty or limp out of RaboDirect Pro12 action due to injury. Fitness or health issues have already deprived him of Stephen Ferris, Iain Henderson, Tommy O’Donnell, Donnacha Ryan, Richardt Strauss and Simon Zebo for the November Tests against the Samoans, Australia and New Zealand. Now Schmidt will be hoping for better news regarding the availability of the latest casualties, who were assessed by Irish team doctors when they arrived in camp at Carton House yesterday.

In-form back Earls failed to make the Munster trip to Glasgow on Friday after irritating a tendon in training on Thursday, while lock O’Connell withdrew just before kick-off at Scotstoun with a calf strain. “He had a little bit of a tight calf during the week and he trained minimally on Thursday, just out of the fact that it was tight,” Munster head coach Rob Penney said of O’Connell. We thought he was going to be able to get but brought Dave Foley over as a precaution.

“Unfortunately Paulie decided during the warm-up it was the right thing to do, trying to play. It’s a calf strain, they can be niggly and they can come right very quickly, so I’m sure the Irish lads are watching with interest.”

On the same night at Ravenhill, hooker Best turned his left ankle 16 minutes into Ulster’s bonus-point victory over Cardiff Blues with the northerners having made a late switch at tighthead prop after Declan Fitzpatrick, also named in Schmidt’s autumn squad, failed a late fitness test.

Leinster started without O’Brien, who had been named by Schmidt’s successor Matt O’Connor to start against Connacht but was withdrawn having rolled an ankle.