THE HAMSTRING INJURY which saw Paul O’Connell carted off the field against France on Sunday has brought a premature end to his international career the IRFU officially confirmed this morning.
O’Connell will undergo surgery this week after suffering what was described as a “significant” hamstring injury.
The second row was expected to join Toulon after the World Cup but, in a statement today, the IRFU say that his time out of the game will “depend on the outcome of the surgery.”
Mike McCarthy has been called up to the Ireland squad in place of O’Connell.
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O’Connell scored eight tries in 108 appearances for Ireland.
He is one of only four players to reach three figures for his country and third behind Brian O’Driscoll (133) and former Munster team-mate Ronan O’Gara (128).
Leinster lock McCarthy has made 17 appearances for Ireland, including seven from the replacements.
As a pool fan, houllier blamed all around him/ yes bad cross from ginola but what about the centre back that the striker strolled past
The French do love to hate each other don’t they…
Players make mistakes, and that one will haunt Ginola for the rest of his life, no two ways about it. Gerard falling on his arse against Chelsea and Jesper Olson passing the ball into the path of Butragueno in the But 1986 World Cup spring to mind.
But France’s World Cup hopes weren’t just shattered in the match against Bulgaria. The full facts are as follows; With two matches left to play in their group, both of them at home, France needed just 1 point. First up was Israel, who France had beaten 4-0 in Tel Aviv, and hadn’t a single win to their name, and Bulgaria who had already beaten France in Sofia, so they should have had a fair idea of what they were dealing with.
The French led both games (2-1 and 1-0 respectively) but went on to lose both, I believe, in injury time.
Houllier has repeatedly blamed Ginola for the entire failure due to his part in the Bulgaria defeat, but the blame lies with himself more so than anyone else.
What an emphatic collapse, I remember it fondly.
The Israel game was the biggest Mess up by far, instead they blame the defeat where they lost in the last minute to the eventual World cup semi finalists
yea finals should have kept the ball down at the corner flag and killed off the game but what about the keeper getting beaten at his near post.
* finals is typo for ginola in my post above
If it was an Irish player today he would have passed it back instead of take the shot!