Injuries add to Lions woes
Clive Woodward today ruled Lions captain Brian O’Driscoll out of the remainder of the tour of New Zealand with a dislocated shoulder.
Welsh centre Tom Shanklin will also play no further part on medical advice because of inflammation in a knee injury, while Richard Hill’s tour is almost certainly over after a knee injury suffered in today’s 21-3 defeat to the All Blacks in the first Test in Christchurch.
Skipper and star midfielder O’Driscoll dislocated his left shoulder during the first 90 seconds. The Irishman was carried off on a stretcher and taken to hospital, but the Lions management are now awaiting tapes of the incident to assess exactly how it happened.
There is speculation that O’Driscoll might have been the victim of foul play, and the Lions never recovered from his departure as they crashed to defeat.
“Brian is not good. It is a very bad dislocation, and it took 25 minutes to get his shoulder back in,” said Lions head coach Woodward.
“I don’t think a lot of the team saw it – it was off the ball. The pictures won’t lie so we have just got to see what happened.”
Hill’s condition is currently being assessed by the Lions medical staff, with a further update likely later.
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