Murray injury a concern for Ireland

Conor Murray’s fitness for Ireland’s RBS 6 Nations title defence will be assessed by national team medics this week after he was forced to miss Munster’s Champions Cup defeat of Sale Sharks at Thomond Park.

First-choice scrum-half Murray failed to make the matchday squad for the final European pool game, in which Munster scored a club European record 65-10 victory over the English visitors, having missed the previous week’s loss at Saracens with a neck injury sustained against Zebre. With fellow Ireland call-ups Keith Earls (groin) and Dave Foley (wrist) failing to finish yesterday’s match, Ireland head coach Joe Schmidt and his medical staff will have their work cut out with Munster players alone as his squad gets preparations underway at Carton House having checked in last night.

Schmidt also saw Leinster scrum-half Eoin Reddan substituted with an injury over the weekend and is facing an anxious wait with Connacht’s Kieran Marmion next in line for an unexpected promotion.

Munster head coach Anthony Foley said Murray “still wasn’t cleared medically” to face Sale.

“They rescanned the area and still weren’t happy so we can’t risk that.”

As to his likely availability to face Italy in Rome on February 7, Foley added: “It’s hard to say because you are dealing with neurologists. They’re the best in the business in the country. I’ll leave that to the medical people. They’re far more educated than I am.”

Foley said Earls had been withdrawn after 42 minutes having felt a tightness in his groin after scoring a try at the start of the second half.

“He was just precautionary. We felt if we kept him on any longer he might be an injury doubt.”

Second row Dave Foley’s wrist may be more problematic after he was replaced at half-time with head coach Foley saying: “It was seriously disrupting his game in the first half so need to have a look at that, I’m sure. He’ll be on the way up to Carton House tonight to meet up with the Irish squad so I’m sure that will be assessed.”

Munster have other issues as they head into a week off ahead of a training camp in Lanzarote which begins next Saturday. Denis Hurley suffered a shoulder injury in the first half which, while not as serious as first appeared, might still see him out of action for a few weeks, according to the Munster boss.

Injured loose-head prop Dave Kilcoyne, Foley said, had been touch and go about begin allowed to return to training last week following a knee injury, with his specialist happy he could run functionally and keep the swelling out of the knee “but unfortunately Dave needs scrum work, contact, in order to fulfil his role as a front row player. He couldn’t get that during the week. We’ll hopefully provide that in La Santa (Lanzarote).”

One player who will make the trip to Lanzarote will be new signing Tyler Bleyendaal, the fly-half/centre who joined the province from New Zealand province Canterbury at the weekend following a serious neck injury and watched his new club from the stands yesterday.