Dan Sheehan injury just ‘bitter’ for next man up Ronan Kelleher and not ‘bittersweet’

READY FOR ROAD: Ronan Kelleher faces the media in Durban. Pic: INPHO/Dan Sheridan

Hooker Ronan Kelleher takes no pleasure in the circumstances leading to his likely elevation to the Ireland starting team for this weekend’s second Test against the Springboks in Durban.

Kelleher is set to start against the world champions after a serious knee injury ruled out Dan Sheehan, which he sustained late in the first half of last weekend’s bruising 27-20 loss at Loftus Versfeld.

Connacht hooker Dave Heffernan has been called up and joined the squad in South Africa on Monday. But Kelleher, who enjoyed a good 40 minutes at Loftus, should start with the South African-born Rob Herring on the bench.

“I wouldn't say bittersweet at all, it's just bitter,” Kelleher said. “You never want to see a teammate injured, hurt or anything like that. It’s unfortunate, but that's sport. We'll deal with it as a group and move on quickly.

“Absolutely, he’ll (Sheehan) be a big loss. There's competition in the squad, we just need to do our job, make sure to put our best foot forward and leave the team in a good place.” 

Part of that moving on was to accept some marginal calls that went against them in the Loftus cauldron and also to analyse their own performance with less emotion 48 hours later.

Kelleher himself was at the heart of one of the game’s most controversial moments. He hooked the ball out of a ruck with his foot while on the ground.

Referee Luke Pearce didn’t notice the action in real time, and from Kelleher’s turnover, wing James Lowe raced 60 metres to score. Unfortunately for Ireland, television match official (TMO) Ben Whitehouse did pick up Kelleher’s action and informed Pearce.

The officials deliberated briefly before concluding that Kelleher’s play was illegal as he was off his feet.

“Yeah, it's tough in the heat of the moment.” Kelleher said about the incident. “I went in to try and hook the ball backwards, it's fine margins in Test matches that decide things and unfortunately we came out the wrong side of it.

“I'm on the ground, trying to hook it. But we're not dwelling on that, we're just looking to control what we can control and you've to leave all that stuff aside and get better ourselves at the whole game really.” 

Sunday and Monday were largely about recovery and a stock take of the wounded. Besides Sheehan, scrumhalf Craig Casey is concussed and will miss the second Test. Ulster scrumhalf Nathan Doak has been called up as cover.

Centre Robbie Henshaw has a question mark too after being hammered to the turf by Bok skipper Siya Kolisi while fullback Jamie Osborne was pulled off at Loftus because of concern over a groin injury.

“The body’s alright, it was obviously pretty physical out there,” Kelleher said. "But, yeah, for the most part we’re okay.

“We turned the page this morning, reviewed the game and took our learnings. Now, we're looking forward to this week coming. 

“As a whole we'll have to improve on the set piece, at times in the game it went well and then it dropped off a touch at other times.

“So, it's just about nitpicking through those little details we might have got wrong or weren't accurate with and try and right those wrongs for this week.

“We're very confident, it's just more fine details that we need to try and fix to change the outcome of some of those moments. We're confident we can fix them.”