British & Irish Lions
• British & Irish Lions tour Australia in 2013
Ireland Rugby
O’Driscoll Injury Doubt! And a look to France!
Ireland will need to step up to the mark from the very beginning on Sunday when the French visit Croke Park.
It was a hard-fought (19-9) win in Cardiff on Sunday for Ireland, in contrast to France’s 39-3 romp over Italy in Rome.
O’Sullivan knows that they must knock the momentum out of France if they stand a chance, that could be difficult with injury doubts over the centre duo of Brian O’Driscoll, their captain, and man-of-the-match Gordon D’Arcy.
O’Driscoll, who made Ireland’s first try and scored their second, left the field five minutes from time with a hamstring problem while D’Arcy sustained a groin injury.
“We don’t know how serious Brian’s injury is. He was running and felt a twinge, but was still able to run around a bit,” said O’Sullivan.
“I’m not saying he’s available for next week but there’s a much better chance now that we took him off at the right time. But he’s definitely a doubt.
“Gordon got through the game so that’s a good sign he should be available for next week.”
O’Sullivan’s assessment of their Cardiff performance is unsurprising:
“It wasn’t a vintage performance,” O’Sullivan admitted. “But there’s something to be said for winning by scoring three tries without conceding any.
Meanwhile French coach Bernard Laporte has added Sebastien Bruno and David Marty to his squad to travel Ireland after injuries to Dimitri Szarzewski and Florian Fritz.
Laporte had been expected to maintain his policy of squad rotation throughout the Six Nations as part of the build up to the World Cup – however with the Irish seen as the biggest test to French hopes, that tactic has been temporarily suspended.
Team manager Jo Maso said: “We know that to win the Championship we have to win in Ireland so we’ll start rotating the players of our 40-man squad in the last three games.”