Kearney a doubt for Argentina clash as focus
IRELAND will arrive back in Dublin this morning and the page will immediately turn when the squad reach Carton House.
How much Joe Schmidt (right) will really have learned from such a facile win over a poor second-string Italy team remains to be seen, but he will at least be glad to have come through the game in Chicago without any fresh injury headaches.
Rob Kearney remains the biggest concern ahead of the Argentina clash on Saturday as the full back struggles to overcome a shoulder injury that he picked up playing for Leinster.
The 32-year-old is not expected to take part in tomorrow’s first pitch session which, generally under Schmidt’s watch, is generally an indication that a player will not feature in the coming weekend.
Schmidt confirmed that Peter O’Mahony took a full part in training last week as he overcame the shoulder problem he picked up playing for Munster.
“Definitely, there’s nothing the matter with Pete. Peter’s fine and trained fully during the week,” the Ireland head coach said following Ireland’s 54-7 win over Italy at Solider Field.
“Rob, he’d be a chance. I think he probably will struggle to make Tuesday’s training which might mean that Saturday might be too soon for him but I’ll have a better idea once I hit the ground on Monday morning and touch base with them.
“He’ll be straight into camp and I’ll catch up with him then and so will the medics and we’ll make a decision on the back of that.”
If Kearney does miss the game against the Pumas, Schmidt’s headache will be eased by Jordan Larmour’s scintillating form as he lit up a dull contest by scoring a truly memorable hattrick.
The 21-year-old continues to bring something different to Ireland’s attack and while he might not be as positionally or defensively strong as Kearney, Larmour’s footwork is up there with the best of the world.
Larmour started against Italy at full back and scored a try as well as creating one for Luke McGrath from the back-field. Then when Will Addison was introduced from the bench for his international debut along with Ross Byrne, Larmour switched to the left wing where he was just as devastating and scored two tries.
It was a stunning hat-trick and one that was made all the more special because it came on what was Larmour’s first international start and on a cabbage-type pitch.
Having made such a blistering start, Ireland got dragged down to Italy’s level in what became a poor, stop-start first half that was littered with sloppy errors.
As a half-back pair, Luke McGrath and Joey Carbery struggled to bring much control or tempo to proceedings with both youngsters making a couple of uncharacteristic mistakes.
They improved significantly in the second half, and given that Schmidt wanted them to lead the team this week, making mistakes in an environment like that is the only way they are going to learn for the tougher tasks ahead.
“I think it’s really hard for halves to inject tempo onto the game if the ball is slow and big pileups are happening and they’re physical defensively,” Schmidt insisted.