Horgan injury worry for O'Sullivan
Ireland coach Eddie O’Sullivan admitted he is “worried” after Shane Horgan withdrew from today’s 31-21 defeat by Scotland at Murrayfield with a knee injury.
Horgan, a shoo-in at right wing for Ireland’s World Cup campaign, was ruled out of the match after sustaining the damage while warming up and will undergo a scan tomorrow.
O’Sullivan said: “We don’t know what the score is with Shane.
“He turned awkwardly on his knee and was a bit worried about it so we took him straight out the game and put Andrew Trimble in instead.
“We won’t know for sure how bad it is until tomorrow morning when he has his scan. I suppose we have to be honest and say that at this point we’re worried about it.
“But we won’t be making any definitive decisions until it’s been looked at by an expert.”
O’Sullivan continued: “We picked up a lot of bumps and bruises. Gavin Duffy got a bruise on the top of his hip and Neil Best finished with a bruised knee.
“But you expect knocks after a game like that, which was all about trench warfare from start to finish.
“The only worry is Shane and he wasn’t even involved in the game. Otherwise we have a clean bill of health.”
O’Sullivan names his World Cup squad in Dublin at 11am tomorrow morning with only two places yet to be decided.
Ulster’s Tommy Bowe and Brian Carney of Munster were locked in a shoot-out for the last remaining back three spot against Scotland with the rugby league convert possibly edging the contest.
And Stephen Ferris, Jamie Heaslip, Keith Gleeson and Alan Quinlan were all given time to press their claims for the fifth available place in the back row at Murrayfield this afternoon.
O’Sullivan revealed several of the World Cup hopefuls made an impression but will not be finalising his selection until late tonight.
He said: “There were fellows playing for their place at the World Cup and we’ll decide this evening, not now, who is in.
“It was a tough day for the wings because the conditions were wet and it was hard for them to get into the game.
“But the back five were able to role up their sleeves and get stuck in because it was real trench warfare.
“In the scheme of things the result wasn’t important but there will be some hard decisions made tonight and today’s performance will feed into that.
“I’ll examine the tape later because it’s only fair to look at the game again when there’s so much at stake.”
