JOE SCHMIDT HAS provided an injury update on Rob Kearney and Keith Earls following Ireland’s 44-10 victory against Romania at Wembley.
Kearney was replaced by Conor Murray in the 70th minute after the Leinster fullback appeared to pull a muscle in the act of scoring his try.
“I think Rob was involved in a high speed play immediately after coming onto the pitch,” said Schmidt.
“Just in scoring the try, he’s just jarred himself up a little bit. We hope it’s not too much. I guess the next 24 to 48 hours will tell whether he’s done anything that would be telling for next week.
Through his glute and his hip really. I think it might have happened when his knee hit the ground or it might have just been in the acceleration that he felt he jarred himself up a bit.
“I think we’ll be able to give you a better picture either tomorrow or Tuesday, but at the moment, he’s just icing his glute and hopefully he’s going to be OK. We would hope at this stage that he’s OK.”
Kearney had earlier replaced Earls in the 49th minute when the Munster winger had to leave for a Head Injury Assessment (HIA) following a collision with Adrian Apostol.
Earls passed the HIA and returned to the field of play only to be replaced by Kearney again just after the hour mark.
“Keith Earls was fine,” Schmidt explained. “He passed his HIA. He was put back on the field. The plan was to replace him with Rob Kearney with 20 minutes to go so. Again, Keith should be fine.”
