Knee injury rules Ireland’s Peter O’Mahony out of World Cup

“Paul O’Connell appears to have suffered a significant hamstring injury and was hospitalised overnight, he’s having scans later today to clarify the extent of the injury”, team manager Mick Kearney told the Irish Times.

“Henry wrote: “(France) barely threatened all evening, but wait until Saturday when all their guns will be blazing in a repeat of the quarter-final of 2007, when the All Blacks lost to Les Bleus at the Millennium Stadium. “It doesn’t look great with Paul”.

“It looked like an adductor to me, but it’s not the learned eye of a medic”.

But there was caution from Napier, who complained: “You never know what you’re going to get with the French”. When Johnny Sexton went off, Ian Madigan came in and ran the game excellently, in his best performance in green. “Hopefully he’ll be okay”.

Given O’Connell’s problems, O’Brien is even more important to Ireland and Schmidt admitted losing the flanker would be a serious blow.

“I truly hope not”, Schmidt said.

John Cullinan and his girlfriend Rachel found three tickets on the ground yesterday before the Ireland game and made a decision to use a few arts & crafts to return the tickets to the rightful owner.

“It’s not a closed fist”. It’s hopefully not something that impacts on us considering the dressing room at the moment.

Jamie Heaslip – 8: Took up the mantle of leadership in the second-half and played his part in a dominant Irish back-row display in the second-half. I am so proud of all the boys. “With the amount of injuries we have, we can ill-afford to lose another player, particularly a player of Sean’s experience and standing”.

Acknowledging that “we played poorly against Italy”, Kearney maintained there remained areas for improvement from Sunday’s performance, highlighting their work in the air, discipline at the breakdown and not turning multiple phases into more.

Herald columnist Chris Rattue said he rated the All Blacks only a 50-50 chance to advance, saying France was the worst possible draw they could have faced.

“It’s not so much selfish, it’s a mentality, sort of a relentlessness that you just have to move on”, said Kearney.

We see above how he redeems a potentially tricky situation, re-adjusting in midair to ensure the ball can be smoothly transferred to the back of the maul, in turn allowing Ireland to exit with a Conor Murray box kick.

“We’ll need more anger on the rucks”, Saint-Andre said.

“It’s very complicated in a game of this intensity”.