Tuesday Round-Up

Irish Injury Update: The news most Irish fans have been waiting for came late last night, as it emerged that star playmaker Jonny Sexton will be fit to take on the Springboks at the Aviva Stadium this weekend. Despite entering the camp struggling with a tweaked hamstring following a run of successive Top 14 appearances with Racing Metro, Irish team manager Mick Kearney seemed confident that the former Leinster flyhalf would be ready to take on Heyneke Meyer’s Boks come Saturday. While there was positive news on the Sexton front, yet another front rower looks set to miss out this weekend, with news emerging of a calf injury to Ulster hooker and one of the main leaders of the grow, Rory Best. Best is currently training by himself, doing modified work to the rest of the team in a bid to regain full fitness ahead of the weekend. Should he miss out, either Sean Cronin or Richardt Strauss would come in, with Cronin the more likely of the two. Elsewhere, Kearney confirmed that tight head prop Mike Ross is coming through training well and is confident that the giant Leinster man will be fit to face up to arguably one of the game’s largest front-rows this weekend in Dublin.

Row concern for Lancaster: England head coach Stuart Lancaster is once again waking up this morning to injury concerns surrounding one of his second row options for this weekend’s much anticipated clash with the World Champions, the All Blacks. Having already lost the services of Joe Launchbury yesterday, today, concerns are abound surrounding Bath lock Dave Attwood, the man tipped to replace Launchbury in the starting XV. Attwood’s fiancee Bridget was due to give birth to the couple’s first child last Friday, but is yet to go into labour. According to Lancaster, it is simply a matter of waiting and observing what happens, as the hours count down towards kickoff at Twickenham on Saturday. Should Attwood be unavailable, Lancaster would be forced to go with one of the uncapped duo of George Kruis and Graham Kitchener to take on New Zealand.

Ryan Sheady