Murray Kinsella reports from Cardiff
IRELAND REMAIN HOPEFUL that Johnny Sexton will recover from an adductor strain in time to feature in Sunday’s World Cup quarter-final against Argentina in Cardiff.
The out-half sustained the injury in last weekend’s 24-9 win over France but scans on Monday returned somewhat promising results on what assistant coach Les Kiss describes as “a slight adductor strain.”
Kiss says Ireland’s medical staff will treat the injury on a day-by-day basis, giving Sexton time to prove his fitness and also ensuring that Argentina will be unsure of Ireland’s starting out-half until Joe Schmidt names his team on Friday afternoon.
“Each day will give us some more information,” said Kiss. “Where that medical information comes back to us, what feedback Johnny gives us, that’ll give us the clues to it.
Knock-out maybe changes the shape of your thinking perhaps, but we have to be pragmatic about what works. It will probably come down to the last minute when we make that decision.”
The performance of Ian Madigan at the Millennium Stadium has certainly provided Ireland with some reassurance if Sexton is not fit. The Leinster man was superb off the bench and Kiss says there was never any concern within the Ireland squad that Madigan wouldn’t step up.
“Personally, I wouldn’t have been fearful anyway,” says Kiss. “I think we’ve got a lot of faith in what Ian can do for us and he proved that. He trusted his instincts in that game against France and caused them a whole heap of trouble.
“In every part of the game, Mads is bolted on, he knows where he is. It’s nice to know that but, as I said, we’ll take each moment, each medical report as it comes and we’ll see where we are.”
Ireland have added Rhys Ruddock and Mike McCarthy to their squad as a result of the World Cup-ending injuries to Peter O’Mahony and Paul O’Connell, with Kiss indicating that the fact both players “know what we’re about” is the key to their call-ups.
There is some slight concern that neither player is as “battle hardened” as might be ideal, but the Irish management feel both Ruddock and McCarthy are in excellent shape fitness-wise.
Kiss said there is no certainty as to how much presence O’Connell will have around the squad following hamstring surgery later this week, although the legendary lock was still with the team in Cardiff yesterday.
Ireland are aware that the loss of O’Connell and O’Mahony shears them of leadership, but Kiss pointed to the qualities of Rory Best, Rob Kearney, Jamie Heaslip and Conor Murray in that regard.
With regards to a replacement for the injured Jared Payne, Kiss insisted that no decision has been made. Indeed, it now seems that Ireland will not add another player this week, waiting until the possibility of preparing for a semi-final next week.
At that stage, more pressing needs are likely after fresh injuries.
“Look, we’ve had a fair handful of injuries obviously but we feel we’ve got reasonably good cover at the moment,” said Kiss. “We had a strategy that we started with and we’re holding our ground at the moment.
We’re looking at that closely in each meeting and trying to ascertain when we do make that decision. We have a bit of time anyway, we can wait for the (Argentina) game and see what happens in the game.
“If you look at the mix in terms of what we have in our backline at the moment, we’ve got coverage right across the park. We’ve exposed players in the midfield, we’ve got coverage in the nines, we’ve got heaps of back three cover.
“At this stage it wasn’t an area where we felt we just had to rush in to a decision. We’re just going to sit on that and see where we go. We’ve got a fair bit on our plate at the moment as you can imagine.”
