IRELAND MEN’S 7S stalwarts Terry Kennedy and Billy Dardis are expected to make swift recoveries from the injuries they suffered in last weekend’s World SVNS Series final leg in Madrid.
However, the men’s team have been hit by an ACL injury for Aaron O’Sullivan, while women’s player Aoibheann Reilly also suffered an ACL injury in Madrid.
O’Sullivan and Reilly are now facing an extended period on the sidelines and will miss the chance to be part of the Olympics in Paris at the end of July.
Reilly, who also plays international 15s rugby for Ireland, was previously hit by an ACL injury in 2022 but fought back to return to action in 2023. Cruelly, she has now suffered an ACL injury in the other knee.
The news on Kennedy and Dardis, two of the Ireland men’s most experienced operators, is positive.
Key playmaker Kennedy took a bang to his left cheek/eye during the pool game against Fiji last weekend and sat out the remainder of the Madrid 7s as a precaution, watching on from the stands as the men’s team finished 5th overall.
Dardis suffered a shoulder injury in the pool game against South Africa and sat alongside Kennedy for Ireland’s closing fixtures at the Metropolitano Stadium but he is also expected to make a quick return.
Kennedy and Dardis won’t be part of the Ireland squad that takes part in the first leg of the Rugby Europe 7s Championship in Croatia this weekend, with the men’s and women’s sides both having planned to rotate as more players get their last chance to impress ahead of the announcement of the final 13-player Olympics squads on 17 June.
But Dardis and Kennedy will be back in training with Ireland next week as the preparation for the Olympics continues.
Leinster and Ireland 15s fullback Hugo Keenan came through his return to 7s action last weekend unscathed and having featured heavily in Ireland’s effort. Topping’s side were pipped by Fiji and New Zealand in overtime in two of their pool games, having beaten South Africa in thrilling fashion with an overtime try in their opening match.
They recovered from the disappointment in impressive fashion, beating Great Britain and South Africa to clinch fifth place.
Antoine Dupont’s France claimed the men’s SVNS title with a win over Argentina in the Grand Final but the Olympics in Paris promise to be incredible closely fought.
Ireland women finished sixth in Madrid and will hope for a strong showing in the first leg of the Rugby Europe competition this weekend. Both Irish squads will be announced tomorrow. The second leg of the Championship takes place in Germany on 28/29/30 June.
That is a huge shame. I think anyone with an interest in Irish boxing would have thought he was one of our hopes for an Olympic medal.
Unfortunately if there is a hint of corruption it’s nothing new in boxing. It can have predetermined outcomes as bad as wwe sometimes.
Agreed, he demolished Kenny Egan a few months ago and we had high hopes for him, he still very young though and the lad will come good .
There was always a danger of this.
We saw what happened in Beijing with K Egan against the Chinese opponent. If the UEFA boys are taking backhanders the boxing boys are certainly taking them. Fighting a Turkish fighter in Turkey was always going to be a massive ask as a result. It’s a real pity but he’s young enough to come back for the next Olympics.
Boxing is becoming a farce though with the blatant fixing of fights.
Corruption is so widespread in Turkish sport it even has it’s own Wikipedia entry http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Turkish_sports_corruption_scandal#section_1 And there are few “sports” as corrupt as boxing, there have been numerous examples in the past year alone. So whoever thought it a good idea to hold a boxing tournament in Turkey must’ve been a little on the slow side.
Im betting the judges were Turks as well knowing the ebu
The referee was from Kazakhstan, and the ringside judges from the Philippines, China, Italy, Algeria and Croatia.
Gutted…! Chin up Ward, long career ahead of you yet!
He’s used to hearing chin down :)
Boxing scoring is becoming like Eurovision voting.
And I made a spelling mistake great :O Your’s* don’t I look silly :L
Katie Taylor has one final chance to qualify for the Olympics but its in china probably against a Chinese girl so don’t rule out two of our best medal chances not even being at the games.
Cheers Niall :) and the mighty Joe will be back he’ll put every man he meets on the canvas from now on! That’ll leave no doubt about it!
Off the boxing topic, but it is incredibly annoying when you put some quotes in blue boxes and others not. Make up your mind! Plus if you use quotation marks they go at the beginning and end of a quote. You’re sincerely a stressed out leaving cert English student who struggles to correct all his own grammar etc. as well as the Journal’s! :) rant over.
Thanks Rob, nice to get some feedback on the quote boxes. Didn’t realise they were so off-putting.
As for the quotation marks — if the quote in question continues on over a few paragraphs, it’s accepted style not to use the close marks at the end of every paragraph, just at the end of the entire quote. Although I wouldn’t start doing that for the Leaving Cert, it’ll probably just stress you out even more!
Good luck with the exams.
Yeah@!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Get a life
Any word on how the protest went?
Gutted for Ward, such a talent.