IRELAND WILL LAUNCH their 2011 Rugby World Cup campaign on Sunday without Cian Healy as the Leinster prop continues to recover from an eye socket injury.
Team manager Paul McNaughton confirmed this morning that Healy has yet to resume contact work since damaging his left eye during Ireland’s 20-9 warm-up defeat against England, but stressed that the 23-year-old was never really expected to feature.
“Cian was relatively well flagged,” McNaughton told RTÉ’s Michael Corcoran this morning.
“When the first prognosis came out, he was due to be able to start contact after the US game. After a re-scan and a re-examination by our doctors, that’s just confirmed that prognosis.
We fully expect him to be fit for selection for the Australia game, but won’t be partaking in the US game.
Healy’s absence at loosehead opens the door for Ulster’s Tom Court to make his World Cup debut, while Tony Buckley can also deputise on both sides of the front row.
The remainder of Declan Kidney’s squad have all been passed as fully fit ahead of Sunday’s game in Yarrow Stadium, New Plymouth, with McNaughton shrugging off concerns about Gordon D’Arcy and Rob Kearney.
“Obviously we left Gordon behind and he came out three or four days later,” he said, “but his calf strain cleared up pretty quickly.
“He took a full part in training yesterday, which is only his second day in the country, and that went very well. Certainly, he’s fully fit and ready to go for selection, which is great.
“Rob Kearney was going under rehab in the last week before we left Ireland. He’s now running at full pace and is eligible for selection.
McNaughton also rubbished speculation that Sean O’Brien’s knee scare could in fact rule him out of the tournament until early October, forcing him to miss all of Ireland’s pool games.
“Sean O’Brien had a medial ligament injury. He’s come through contact for the last two days and he’s certainly eligible for selection as well.
“Sean was running before we left, he was running and turning within a day of when we left, so there was never ever any doubt that Sean would be available for the pool games.
If there was any cautious doubt, it was in relation to the first game, but he is eligible for selection now.
Kidney is expected to name his starting XV for Sunday’s game tomorrow morning.
Delighted for the lad! Would be great if in the future more young Irish players could come back for half a season play some LOI and go back with that bit of experience, seems to have done Eoghan no harm
Ambrose and boyata are both a liability,simunovic still an unknown quantity so I’d say it’s a toss up between o Connell and kolo to partner sviatchenko.would be great to see eoghan nail down a regular spot and continue his progress
That is brilliant news for Celtic and Ireland.
I watched the match – O’Connell showed great character throughout the game.
Can’t but read Rogers interview in his voice
Lads…. were ye watching a different game,,, he was 100% to blame for the goal…. lost his man completely
Blueman, you’re right, the goal was his fault but his head didn’t go down after it as most young players would and he went from strength to strength as the game went on.
It’s a zonal marking system, therefore no man to lose. Although he could have been better for it so could every other defender in the box and if Gordon stayed on his line maybe it wouldn’t have been a goal so 100% is very harsh on the the young fella. For a 20 y/o making his first European start in a notoriously tough place to go he done very little wrong and was one of Celtics better players. If you were watching the match and not just the goal you would have seen that!
O Connell did well all things taken into account,good result to take back to glasgow
Fact is the goal was his fault, you can dress it up anyway you want,… football at the highest level is a harsh game, and goals decide games, if he wasn’t a young irish player playing for celtic , people wouldn’t be raving about his performance and making excuses for his defending for the goal… think we need to take off the green white and gold glasses here…. and I did watch the full game
Blueman there’s nobody bigging him up.if simunovic can be kept fit and playing regularly,o connell won’t get much game time.at the moment he’s the pick of a bad bunch and just a potentially good defender
Blueman get a grip ffs. He’s 20 years of age, made one or two small mistakes in the biggest game of his career to date. Start blaming the young man now and giving him abuse about the goal could shatter his confidence, that’s why he’s being praised. Attitudes like yours is the reason a lot of talented youngsters don’t make it in the game!
Hahaha…. one or two small mistakes???… wouldn’t call losing his man for a goal in a champions lge game a small mistake. … its quite a significant one. If young pros can’t take a bit of criticism they may as well forget about a career in the game…. and I thought he he will let a bit of criticism on the 42 get to him… if he he was that type of character he would never have made it this far
You said people wouldn’t be raving about his performance if he wasn’t Irish or playing for Celtic. Well this is an Irish site and an article about Celtic, so obviously people who have a better understanding of the game than yourself (and people who really watched the game) think he merits praise for his performance! And if you’re a Celtic supporter you should be ashamed of yourself :-/
I am not a celtic fan … I am looking at the game… which I watched in full from an unbiased point of view… it’d obvious your biased towards him, , and if u can’t see he was at fault for that goal than it is you who doesn’t really know that much about football….