EMERGING IRELAND CAPTAIN Rhys Ruddock will play no further part in the squad’s Tbilisi Cup campaign and may not return in time to make Ireland’s Rugby World Cup squad.
The Leinster blindside was replaced after 20 minutes of today’s 33 – 7 win over Uruguay. Post-match, it was revealed that Ruddock has injured his right arm.
Ruddock broke his right forearem in Leinster’s Champions Cup meeting with Harlequins in December. The 24-year-old returned to play for his province during the Six Nations, but suffered a recurrence of the problem after two games back.
Now, Emerging Ireland coach Allen Clarke was holding out hope for the x-ray results, it would appear the issue has scuppered the back row again with the World Cup kicking off in three months and a day.
“It’s early days, but he’ll go for an x-ray and the result of that x-ray will tell us where he is,” Clarke told IrishRugby.ie
“He’s had a knock there before, but I’m not the expert. It would be wrong to second guess the x-ray. I’ve concern for him as an individual, but he’s a resilient young man, he’ll bounce back. It rules him out of the rest of the tournament.”
Clarke spoke in short sharp tones about the performance of his team after the five-try win over the South Americans.
Though the scoreline appeared comfortable, the majority of the game was anything but for the Irish side and Clarke put that down to players losing sight of the gameplan.
“First half we were reasonably good,” the Ulster forwards coach said having watched his side open a 19- 0 deficit in 14 minutes.
Second half, we gave them energy. We went off the script, went on our own agendas out there and they were able to get in on our breakdown and cause us problems there.
He added: ”There are positives, but there are aspects of the game we’ll have to improve.
“We looked like a really good team at times, but in the second half we made ourselves look average.”
