Sean O’Brien ruled out of Ireland's clash with England
After Saturday’s attritional 10-9 defeat to France in Paris, Schmidt has concerns over the fitness of wing Dave Kearney, centre Jared Payne, lock Mike McCarthy and Johnny Sexton, though the coach said yesterday the fly-half was recovering well from a whiplash injury affecting his neck and shoulder.
The late hit Sexton took from Yoann Maestri in Paris may have contributed to that but the French lock’s foul play in levelling the Irishman off the ball went unpunished in-game and he received only a slap on the wrists yesterday, earning merely a citing commissioner’s warning for his shoulder barge, his actions deemed to be “just short of” warranting a red card.
While Sexton continues to recover, flanker O’Brien suffered a grade two hamstring tear 20 minutes into the game and will miss the England clash.
“We’ll see how he tracks beyond that,” Schmidt said yesterday of O’Brien.
Wing Kearney is also likely to miss out due to an AC joint injury he suffered taking a hit from Guilhem Guirado that has left him with a “very sore” shoulder and neck.
McCarthy, with a concussion, will follow return to play protocols but Schmidt added: “We’ll also get him to see a specialist, just because of the nature of the impact.”
Payne suffered a grade one hamstring strain and Schmidt said he would not train this week and “we’ll have to just monitor him in the lead-up to the England game”.
There was also a blow for Luke Fitzgerald yesterday as he was ruled out for up to eight further weeks, having suffered a medial knee ligament injury in the build-up to the Wales game.
There was some good news for Schmidt to report as he prepared to welcome Healy and Ross back into the fold following knee and hamstring injuries respectively.
Both came through their comeback games with Leinster last Friday and will play again for their province this weekend but not before joining a 19- or 20-man Ireland squad for a short training camp in Mullingar from tomorrow until Friday.
Following Ireland’s failure to cope with the angular scrummaging of Eddy Ben Arous and Rabah Slimani last Saturday, Leinster boss Leo Cullen endorsed tighthead Ross to deal with any scrum situation.
“It’s his ability to perform his core job,” Cullen said of Ross yesterday.
“He’s a scrummaging tighthead who enjoys the scrum and knows everything about every opponent that he’s going to come up against.
“He has a wealth of experience as well... it’s hard to beat that experience.”
Ross and Healy will not be the only ones heading back to their provinces, with Schmidt retaining only a core squad who featured heavily against the French, the starting XV plus a number of substitutes who were on for prolonged spells in Paris.
“We’ll give the players a weekend off to freshen up and then hopefully get on a bit of a roll heading into the England week,” Schmidt said.
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