Jack Conan to miss Ireland-Portugal 'conditioned training session'
SOME NECK: Dave Kilcoyne putting in the work in Portugal. Pic: ©INPHO/Dan Sheridan
Ireland have clarified their plans to train with, and not play against, Portugal on the Algarve on Wednesday but Jack Conan will not be available for the session due to a foot injury.
Reports that Andy Farrell’s men, on a warm-weather training camp at Quinta do Lago this week, had arranged a behind-closed-doors match with the World Cup Pool C minnows in order to give captain Johnny Sexton some valuable gametime during his current three-match ban have proven only marginally correct.
Ireland’s training squad, who arrived on the Algarve on Sunday night minus back-rower Conan, will instead all take part in what defence coach Simon Easterby on Tuesday described as a “conditioned training session”.
Fly-half Sexton, 38, will be a participant, Easterby confirmed, but the captain will not be available for Test-match selection until Ireland’s opening Pool B game against Romania in Bordeaux on September 9. He missed last Saturday’s 33-17 win against Italy in Dublin, the first of the three-match suspension he picked up as a result of his behaviour towards the match officials following Leinster’s Champions Cup final defeat to La Rochelle.
Conan did face the Italians but was withdrawn on 35 minutes after losing power in his foot and watched the second half with a protective boot before the Ireland medics and coaches opted to leave him at home to rehabilitate rather than travel with the rest of the squad.
Easterby said a decision on whether the 2021 British & Irish Lions Test No.8 would be fit to face England back at the Aviva Stadium on August 19 would be made on the travelling squad’s return to Ireland.
“We’ll find out next week,” the defence coach said. “We’re still waiting on an assessment and we decided it was probably best for him to stay back in Dublin and rehab and then we’ll get a better indication on how he is when we arrive back into camp next week.”
Easterby confirmed the joint session with Portugal on Wednesday but explained: “So I guess it wouldn’t be the first time it’s happened and it won’t be the last time it happens. Often teams collaborate with other teams and get the opportunity to do some set-piece against each other and run backline against backline.
“It certainly isn’t a full-blown game, it’s a conditioned training session which has been a collaboration between the Portuguese coaches and ourselves around trying to create a training session which is slightly different from the norm.
“When you know each other so well and you get the opportunity to train against each other for four or five weeks, you often cancel each other out in terms of what you’re trying to do in attack and defence, so this is one of those opportunities we have to connect up with the Portuguese to train against them and to challenge ourselves in a way that you normally wouldn’t do in a normal training week.”
As for Sexton’s involvement, the Ireland assistant replied: “Yeah, he’ll be playing a part in the training session for sure, as will every other player that’s here actually. Every other player is available to train that’s travelled.”
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