SCHMIDT LEFT FRUSTRATED
JOE Schmidt has admitted Ireland’s six-day turnaround to face hosts Japan at the World Cup is a “frustration” that leaves head injury doubts Peter O’Mahony and Bundee Aki struggling to be available for selection.
Flanker O’Mahony and centre Aki failed Head Injury Assessments (HIAs) in Ireland’s stunning 27-3 bonus-point win over Scotland in Yokohama yesterday.
Head coach Schmidt revealed neither Ireland star was showing any concussion symptoms after their opening Pool A encounter, but was left to lament the coupling of a sixday return-to-play process with the same length of time to his side’s next match.
Johnny Sexton, Josh Van Der Flier and Tadhg Furlong were all brought off early but Schmidt said none had sustained injuries, leaving the concerns over O’Mahony and Aki to rankle with Ireland’s Kiwi head coach.
“Tadhg is fine, Johnny is fine we just decided to bring him off and Conor (Murray) off the field,” said Schmidt.
“We had two HIAs, in Bundee and Pete. They are both symptom-free at the moment, that’s reassuring, but we’ve got to go through the process.
“They failed HIA one, so they’ve got to go through HIA two and three to determine whether or not they have a concussion.
“Beyond that, the minimum time you can turn around a player is six days. So we’ll look at how that pans out over the next probably 48 hours when they do their HIA two and HIA three.”
Asked if the short gap between Ireland’s opening two World Cup matches could now become problematic, Schmidt continued: “It’s a frustration for everyone, because everyone knows they are going to have some tight turnarounds. For us we’ve just got to accept it’s a six-day turnaround and manage our squad as best we can.”
Dejected Scotland boss Gregor Townsend was left to chart his side’s way back into this tournament, that must start by finding greater accuracy and physicality.
“We would have needed to win our next three games, whatever the result today,” said Townsend.
“We can bounce back and play a lot better against Samoa, then carry that into Russia and especially Japan, who have started the tournament well.
“This was hugely disappointing; we didn’t start with any of the energy, accuracy, and aggression required to beat a team like Ireland.” IRELAND: Tries: J. Ryan, Best, Furlong, Conway; Cons: Sexton (2); Pens: Carty.
SCOTLAND: Pen: Laidlaw. ITALY coach Conor O’Shea was far from impressed with his side’s performance in their Rugby World Cup Group B opener against Namibia despite the 47-22 victory.
Italy scored seven tries at the Hanazono Rugby Stadium but will need to raise their standards with games against South Africa and New Zealand to come.
O’Shea said: “We’ll have to move on from that pretty quickly. It wasn’t very pretty. There were too many errors in it and it was difficult conditions at times in the second half, which doesn’t excuse it.
“We’re disappointed with the way we played. We have a job to do in these first two games and you know that’s not the true version of us, but we’ll improve massively by the time we come to Thursday.”
Italy face Canada on Thursday and O’Shea is keen to switch focus to that game.
He added: “It’s a quick turnaround and you make lots of changes when you have the game in the bag that sometimes you shouldn’t but you lose the continuity you might have started to build up.
“We just didn’t get the pace into the game that we wanted. It was difficult out there and credit to Namibia anyway, but we’ll take five points and we’ll move on quickly.”
Namibia coach Phil Davies was delighted with his side’s performance as they ran in three tries in defeat.
The former Cardif Blues and Scarlets chief said: “I’m very proud of the players, the way we adapted to the speed of the game, some of the tries we scored and some of the resolute defence.
“You know I was really happy, but credit to Italy, you know, they put a bit of pressure on and scored at crucial times and they deserve the win.”
ITALY: Tries: Penalty, Allan, Tebaldi, Padovani, Canna, Polledri, Minozzi; Cons: Allan (3), Canna (2). NAMIBIA: Tries: Stevens, Greyling, Plato; Pens: Loubser; Cons: Loubser (2).