Pressure on to ‘glue’ bodies back together

Joe Schmidt has charged his medical staff with putting his players back together to face Argentina in next Sunday’s World Cup quarter-final after Ireland survived a battle of attrition to defeat France last night.

Captain Paul O’Connell is head coach Schmidt’s major concern after leaving the Millennium Stadium on a stretcher cart during the interval of his side’s epic 24-9 victory which also saw Ireland lose fly-half Johnny Sexton and flanker Peter O’Mahony during an immensely physical contest.

The victory secured top spot in Pool D and earned Ireland an extra day to prepare for a return to Cardiff on Sunday and Schmidt indicated last night that he and his backroom team will need every hour they can get, and even that might not be long enough in O’Connell’s case.

“I’ll see who we glue together first. It going to be massively challenging,” Schmidt said. “I know we won’t have the same starting 15 as we had today. I’d doubt whether Paul will make it.

“I’d be hopeful about Johnny and a little more than hopeful about Pete but we’re just going to put them on ice for the next 24 hours, get the scans done and we’ll just give everyone a day and a half off and get back together on Tuesday evening and start having a look.

“There is a lot of attrition in the changing room. That will mean we are going to have to recover for a couple of days before we start thinking about progressing.” Schmidt had earlier given an assessment on the injured trio saying in his post-match press conference that: “It doesn’t look great on Paul, looks like an upper hamstring but we’re probably going to have to wait until tomorrow to get that scanned, just to make sure that the inflammation has decreased a little bit.

“Johnny, it looked like an adductor to me, but that’s not the learned eye of a medic, so they’ll probably get Johnny scanned tomorrow and Peter O’Mahony as well.

“Pete didn’t seem too bad. We’re hopeful with Pete, I think it’s a twist of the ankle or knee but he was walking pretty well in the changing room and hopefully he’s okay. I’m not sure which one it is, whether it’s the ankle or the knee, I didn’t get a chance to get in there and talk to him.

“I’ve spoken briefly to Johnny and he’s already talking about next week so I’m not sure if that means he’ll be playing or not but he’s never short of advice.

“It’s probably Paul who worries me the most of those three.” Schmidt had already to make a decision on who to replace outside centre Jared Payne, who was ruled out for the rest of the tournament with a foot fracture. Fergus McFadden and Andrew Trimble appear to be the frontrunners to be called up early this week.

Should O’Connell have played his last game in green having decided to call time on his Test career at the end of the tournament, Schmidt may turn to Ulster’s Dan Tuohy as a replacement lock, with Munster’s Dave Foley another consideration.