Rugby World Cup:There was mixed news for Declan Kidney on Thursday as he finalised his preparations for Sunday's World Cup opener against the USA. Although Cian Healy was ruled out, the squad was otherwise given a clean bill of health with Seán O'Brien, Gordon D'Arcy and Rob Kearney available for the match in New Plymouth.
Healy has recovered from the eye injury sustained during the 20-9 defeat by England in the final match of the last month’s warm-up tests but has yet to begin contact work. The 23-year-old Leinster prop will return to full training this weekend and should be available to face Australia in Auckland on Saturday week.
“Cian won’t be playing at the weekend,” said Ireland team manager Paul McNaughton. “He won’t resume contact work until the weekend, which was the original prognosis, so he won’t be available for the USA game but will be available for the Australia game.
“He’s been able to do a couple of scrums but not as much as normal.”
Ireland’s options to cover the loss of Healy are either to promote Tom Court from the bench or draft Tony Buckley straight into the starting XV. Ireland relocated from Queenstown to New Plymouth this morning and were greeted by another Maori welcome upon their arrival.
“We had a nice Maori welcome as we got off the plane and onto the bus,” said McNaughton. “We’ve had a number of these before and we had one this morning, which is the big one of the trip.
“We had one in Queenstown but that was combined with a civil ceremony and caps ceremony, so this was our main Maori welcome. The players sang ‘Ride On’. They had their singing voices on and they sang it well.”
McNaughton revealed that 30 seconds silence will be observed before Sunday’s match against the USA to mark the 10th anniversary of 9/11. Both teams will also wear black armbands.
