IRELAND HEAD COACH Adam Griggs says full-back Eimear Considine suffered a broken nose in the final moments of his side’s victory over Italy today.
Considine was seen clutching her face in agony after a clash at the end of Ireland’s 25-5 win which ensured a third-place finish for Griggs’ side in this year’s championship.
The Clare native was then withdrawn for a HIA and was replaced by Eve Higgins for the last few seconds. Considine was Ireland’s second player to be forced off the pitch for a HIA against Italy, after captain Ciara Griffin went off in the first half and did not return for the rest of the game.
“She took a kick to the face and broke her nose,” Griggs explained to the media about Considine’s injury in the aftermath of the win.
“So, she needs to obviously get that sorted. Good medical team looking after her but she’ll be fairly sore.”
He continued:
“It’s never nice to see the injuries on a day when we’ve been successful and similar for Ciara and Eimear as well. But I spoke about the squad depth and people being able to fill in when we need them to and again, Hannah [Tyrrell] came on and did a good job.
“We were able to move her to full-back. Her versatility is priceless to us so again, we were well covered in that area.”
Ireland went in front after a 14th minute try by Dorothy Wall and maintained their lead for the rest of the contest, running in three more tries through Cliodhna Moloney and a brace from Amee-Leigh Murphy Crowe.
Stacey Flood also added a penalty to Ireland’s tally as she produced a Player of the Match-winning performance at out-half.
“I thought Stacey managed the game pretty well,” said Griggs, “especially in the first half when we had a bit of a wind behind us, she put is in the right positions on the field. We were really happy with that. We just let ourselves down with some execution once we got into those areas.
“She obviously had a really strong game and kept the tempo up which we were delighted with. I thought Brittany [Hogan] did a great job as well. She brought her physicality, she tested them at the breakdown and we were really pleased with that.
“We know what Amee-Leigh can bring and it was great to see her get some ball in space. We had a nice set-piece move that we’d worked on and it was really good to see her back herself and score those couple of tries for us.”
Italy failed to gain many yards in Ireland’s half of the pitch in the first 40 minutes but were stronger in attack after the restart.
Ireland repelled the visitors for large parts of the second half, but after several attempts, the Italians eventually bundled over for a try late in the game to register their only score of the game.
“Our defensive effort is probably the biggest positive we’ll take from it,” Griggs noted.
“Italy will never stop coming at you, they’re a scrappy team. We had to dig deep and scrap for every inch around that defensive line as well.”
