IRELAND WILL BE nervously waiting for an update on Dan Sheehan’s fitness after the hooker was forced off in the first half of the 29-10 win against England today.
Andy Farrell will be hoping for positive news given Rónan Kelleher is currently nursing a hamstring injury. Ireland are confident Kelleher will be fit for the World Cup but now Sheehan has emerged as a concern following an otherwise stress-free day at Aviva Stadium.
“Dan’s lost a bit of power in his foot,” Farrell said.
“It seems to be the same old story, doesn’t it? We won’t know until we get it looked at, scanned or whatever, so we’ll probably know more in the morning.”
Overall Farrell was pleased with the performance as Ireland overcame a sluggish first-half performance to ease to a comfortable win. The home side scored five superb tries with their attack delivering some excellent moments, although Ireland’s lineout work proved an area of concern for the second game running.
“It had a bit of everything, good, bad and ugly, really,” Farrell continued.
I wasn’t too happy at half time. I thought we had them in a place where we could just try and push a little bit harder and make it a little bit easier for ourselves, but we didn’t.
“We didn’t kick on in the first half, probably because England’s lineout defence was pretty good and we made it a bit scrappy for ourselves.
“But I was really pleased that we found our rhythm back into the game in the second half there.
“In regards to the lineout as well, I thought it was much better and we scored some great tries.
“First half, we could have come out of the blocks a little bit harder and pushed that little bit more.
“The story of the game is we won, which is great. We scored five tries so hopefully that’s nice for the crowd and a little bit entertaining before we go away.
“But obviously the story of the day, it’s very fitting that Keith (Earls) gets his 100th cap and we make sure that he does that with a W, and also him scoring a try in Keith Earls style in the corner as well just made the day for everybody really.”
Ireland will now head to France for a final warm-up game against Samoa next Saturday before Farrell names his final 33-man squad the following Monday.
The other major talking point was Billy Vunipola’s red card – with England seeing a player have a yellow card upgraded to red by the TMO bunker for the second week running.
“Again it’s a red card that somebody will have a look at and make the right decision,” Farrell added.
“It is what it is, isn’t it? We’re seeing more and more of that.
“It just highlights for us massively that it isn’t just the tackle height, it’s discipline in general. There are cards everywhere at the minute, and there is a realisation as well that at the start of competitions, certainly World Cups, referees are going to be red hot on stuff, so making sure that we’re the most disciplined side is something that we’re chasing down.”
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