Declan Kidney has called on the cavalry ahead of the England clash, Scotland have got the team sheet in early and Robbie Henshaw appears to be playing on one leg… literally.
Kidney calls on the cavalry
Anyone who tuned into Ireland’s clash with Wales at the weekend would nearly have been sore themselves afterwards just watching the shuddering ferocity of some of the hits that went in and it’s no surprise that Declan Kidney has had to call on some reinforcements ahead of the England game on Sunday.
Thankfully, concerns have eased on most of the walking wounded in the Irish camp apart from Gordon D’Arcy (dead leg) and Keith Earls (shoulder), who played a limited part in training at Carton House today.
In the event that their injuries don’t clear up in time, Kidney has summoned Robbie Henshaw, Darren Cave and Andrew Trimble into camp as cover in the backs, while Rhys Ruddock has also been brought in to beef up the forward contingent.
“Most of the players have recovered,” Ireland team manager Mick Kearney said.
“The two who have guarded prognosis are Earlsy and Gordon D’Arcy, we will have to wait until later in the week to see how those turn out.”
The battle against England promises to be as if not more bruising than the meeting with Wales and we need all the available bodies we can get, so hopefully there’ll be more positive news on both players as the week progresses.
Scotland get the team sheet in good and early
Possibly in an effort to get the England defeat out of the system as quickly as possible or possibly in consideration of the needs of the many Fantasy Rugby managers out there who don’t want it to leave it too late to make the necessary changes, Scottish coach Scott Johnson has already named his team for the meeting with Italy this weekend.
The XV sees two changes from the side who failed to reclaim the Calcutta Cup from England, with Robert Harley coming in instead of Alasdair Strokosch, who is due to have an eye socket injury assessed, and Ross Ford starting at hooker ahead of Dougie Hall, who has a knee problem but may yet be fit to take his place amongst the replacements.
Scotland team v Italy: S Hogg; S Maitland, S Lamont, M Scott, T Visser; R Jackson, G Laidlaw; R Grant, R Ford, E Murray; R Gray, J Hamilton; R Harley, K Brown, J Beattie.
Replacements: D Hall/P MacArthur, M Low, G Cross, A Kellock, D Denton, H Pyrgos, D Weir, M Evans.
Where is Robbie Henshaw’s left leg gone?
A lot of the time all you’ll find is snaps of players standing around on the pitch or Declan Kidney looking like, well, Declan Kidney, but occasionally one can stumble across a gem or two when trawling through the most recent pictures from the Irish training camp.
Today, for example, the lads over at Inpho put up this beauty of Robbie Henshaw, who appears to have lost his left leg during what must have been a particularly hard-hitting session at Carton House today.
Some would suggest that Henshaw is merely stretching but we certainly can’t make out his left foot in the background although, by the same token, we wouldn’t be surprised if he has grown it back in time for training tomorrow.
LISTEN: You Must Be Jokin’ podcast – listen to the latest episode now!
