Is O'Driscoll Out?????

dixiefly

This would be a disaster to put it mildly

taken to hospital after Bayonne match
Thursday, 16 August 2007 23:31
Ireland captain Brian O'Driscoll has been taken to hospital with a reported fractured cheekbone, after he was punched in the face during Ireland's 42-6 win over Bayonne.

The Irish claimed an emphatic victory, but the injury to their talisman is a serious worry with the start of the World Cup only three weeks away.

O'Driscoll was forced to leave the pitch during the second half at Stade Jean Dauger after being struck by lock Mikaera Tewhata.


The Irish captain's availability for the game against Namibia on 9 September in Bordeaux must now be in doubt.

'I'm genuinely worried (about O'Driscoll),' admitted Ireland coach Eddie O'Sullivan. 'He's gone for an X-ray. If the doc's worried, then I'm worried.'

'Hopefully, Brian is okay,' said O'Sullivan. 'And if he isn't, it would be a big pity. We knew we would get a physical game here, we needed that game. Bar Brian's injury, it was a worthile exercise. It'll be overshadowed if Brian got injured.'

'But it was a punch thrown, so you can't legislate for that. Anyone can throw a punch anytime. It could be serious if it is fractured, it would be a pity.'


Denis Leamy also suffered a shoulder injury and was taken off as a precaution, but after the game it was announced that his problem is not serious.

Ronan O'Gara set the tone with a first-minute penalty and the Irish went further ahead seven minutes later, when Paul O'Connell went over in the corner following good lineout possession, with Gordon D'Arcy prominent.


Denis Hickie then gathered the ball on his own 10-metre line and evaded two challenges on his way to a brilliant try, which O'Gara converted for a 15-0 lead.


The hosts finally managed to score through Richard Dourthe's penalty, before Leamy went off injured to be replaced by Munster team-mate Alan Quinlan.


Dourthe scored another penalty, but Quinlan made an instant impact when he fed Andrew Trimble for Ireland's third try on the stroke of half-time for a 20-6 lead.


There was no let-up by the Irish after the interval as Hickie went over for another try almost immediately, before a superb fifth try of the night.


Marcus Horan reached the Bayonne 22 before passing to O'Connell, who held off Daniel Larrechea's challenge and went over with O'Gara again converting.


Ireland completed the win when Hickie went over for his third, with O'Gara adding the final points.

But the game was extremely physical throughout with five yellow cards shown in the game.

English referee Wayne Barnes had his hands full, with Cedric Bergez and Ireland's Neil Best yellow-carded in the first half.

Bayonne full-back Daniel Larrachea and South African lock Robe Linde followed in the second-half along with Gordon D'Arcy.

O'Sullivan said that the physical nature of Bayonne's game sometimes went too far.

'I don't mind physicality, but it was more than physical tonight, there were some cheap shots, that's the pity, but that's the way they want to play it, we can't control that, we can only play our game.'

mell0

french cheating ****ing pricks - supposed to be a warm up not random cheap shots to take out our top players hope we ****ing anialate them and hope argentina beat them and they dont even get through the group stage

zAbbo

It was a Kiwi who hit Brian, but supposed to be a lot of cheap shots in the game.

5 Sin Bins as well.

Hold off until the scans come through and assessment is made tomorrow.

AbusesToilets

Prayers Go!:(

Diamondmaker

EOS indicated a few positoives and it sounds like DEnis is on fire!!

But For gods sake what does BOD have to do to get a fair chance at any big prize!!!

AbusesToilets

Not play the French?

SoObvious

EOS needs his head examined to have taken this match offer, and I suspect he knows it now but will never admit it.

The French have synically and very easily severely damaged Ireland's hopes by taking out one of our main lynchpins. And please don't tell me it was a Kiwi who did the dirt. Everybody in French rugby has his price. It was obvious that the match was offered purely with this purpose in mind.

The French should be ashamed of themselves. The match was unusually and strangely (or not so strangely) aggressive and violent on Bayonne's behalf and that is the way they set out to camoflage the dirty deed. Shame on French rugby!

It is very important for the French nation not to be defeated by Ireland as it would be viewed as a national disaster, so the answer was get Bayonne to challenge Ireland and take out O'Driscoll. I'm not saying this with hindsight. I and many others that I spoke to have been saying the same all week.

The naive Irish fall for it again!

TheDeficit

SoObvious wrote:

EOS needs his head examined to have taken this match offer, and I suspect he knows it now but will never admit it.

The French have synically and very easily severely damaged Ireland's hopes by taking out one of our main lynchpins. And please don't tell me it was a Kiwi who did the dirt. Everybody in French rugby has his price. It was obvious that the match was offered purely with this purpose in mind.

The French should be ashamed of themselves. The match was unusually and strangely (or not so strangely) aggressive and violent on Bayonne's behalf and that is the way they set out to camoflage the dirty deed. Shame on French rugby!

It is very important for the French nation not to be defeated by Ireland as it would be viewed as a national disaster, so the answer was get Bayonne to challenge Ireland and take out O'Driscoll. I'm not saying this with hindsight. I and many others that I spoke to have been saying the same all week.

The naive Irish fall for it again!

I agree, what did the French club hope to gain from this match? Nothing! There was absolutely no reason for them to want this game. It's clear that they went out with the intention that if they got the chance they'd make a name for themselves.

They gambled on us sending out our first choice side and it worked.

iwincosimcool

You lot are over-reacting, Id be very suprised If he doesnt make the world cup, at worst he would wear some kind of protective head gear, peter cech style. Really hope we batter the french In Paris now.

damienom

Exact same thing that happened to Jason McAteer ahead of the 2002 Soccer World Cup when a Cameroon lad did him in a friendly.

Just reading about Schevchenko who play with a face guard three weeks after surgery on a fractured cheekbone. Presumably it's not as easy for a rugby played to do the same. I can't see O'Driscoll featuring any side of the French game if at all

electric69

SoObvious wrote:

EOS needs his head examined to have taken this match offer, and I suspect he knows it now but will never admit it.

The French have synically and very easily severely damaged Ireland's hopes by taking out one of our main lynchpins. And please don't tell me it was a Kiwi who did the dirt. Everybody in French rugby has his price. It was obvious that the match was offered purely with this purpose in mind.

The French should be ashamed of themselves. The match was unusually and strangely (or not so strangely) aggressive and violent on Bayonne's behalf and that is the way they set out to camoflage the dirty deed. Shame on French rugby!

It is very important for the French nation not to be defeated by Ireland as it would be viewed as a national disaster, so the answer was get Bayonne to challenge Ireland and take out O'Driscoll. I'm not saying this with hindsight. I and many others that I spoke to have been saying the same all week.

The naive Irish fall for it again!

It must be great being able to read peoples minds and tell us all what people thousands of miles away are planning on doing to our players:rolleyes:

Hippo

electric69 wrote:

It must be great being able to read peoples minds and tell us all what people thousands of miles away are planning on doing to our players:rolleyes:

I said last week (on another forum) that this game was a dangerous option for the very reasons stated above. At least if we played other rwc teams in friendlies players would be concerned about being cited or banned for any nasty stuff and thus missing all or part of the tournament. Playing against this shower was a huge and unnecessary risk, especially given the disciplinary record of French club sides. That's not a matter of mind-reading, it's a reasonable assumption.

damienom

IRFU Release

Brian O'Driscoll Injury Update


Following an x-ray and scan of Brian O'Driscoll's injury, it has been confirmed that he has sustained a fracture to his sinus and a deep laceration under his right eye. This is not as serious as initially feared and the injury will not require any surgery. The recovery period for the injury is 3 - 4 weeks which will rule O'Driscoll out of the warm up game against Italy next week and the first Rugby World Cup Pool game against Namibia.

zAbbo

Looks like the prayers have worked.

It's not a fractured cheekbone,

The report calls the injury 'not as serious as initially feared', and it will not require any surgery.

The recovery period for the injury is 3 - 4 weeks which will rule O'Driscoll out of the warm up game against Italy next week and the first Rugby World Cup Pool game against Namibia.

http://www.sarugby.com/news/News/article/sid=7113.html

O'Driscoll out of first Cup game

Irish skipper Brian O'Driscoll receives treatment for the injury
Brian O'Driscoll is likely to miss Ireland's opening World Cup match after suffering a fractured sinus in Thursday's 42-6 victory over Bayonne.

More to follow.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/rugby_union/irish/6950657.stm

The Rooster

Apparently its the maxillary sinus that's fractured:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxillary_sinus

A-Train

Hopefully he is only out for 3 to 4 weeks, but it still was bit silly playing a
French club team with players out to make a name for themselves.

Diamondmaker

Awoke to the more "positive" news on the radio !! maybe miss the Nam game , Georgia too....please god he wll be ble to exact 6N retribution on the French!

Either way robs him of another 20mins match fittness last night and 2 to 3 more games.

Bottom line facing the French with only the Scot game and last night under belt since March....not ideal!:mad:

Apparently there were no TV camears at game, wonder did our video analyst get much footage of what sonded unnecesarily like a overly physical game!

TheLedge

I woke this morning and put on my new ireland jersey to go to work. It's casual Friday and I work in England!

So, not knowing the Bayonne news I started to think about the actual thought process that went into playing these guys in the first place. A bit risky I thought considering the WC is around the corner and these guys won't put up much of a game to us. Lo and Behold Radio 1 broke the news and I was gutted.

I know rugby is a tough sport but christ, I'd have hauled the players off the park if it really was as dirty as it sounded. And the wisdom of making a 27 year old inexperienced referee in charge? Pathetic.

Smacks of poor planning and organisation by the Irish setup if we're going to start pointing fingers.

Get the rosary beeds out lads.

redmca

The news on BOD is as good as it could be after the initial fears. I expect he will get a run (possibly off the bench) against Georgia. Horgan too, hopefully.

If ever we needed an incentive to stuff it to the French, I think this incident along with Croke Park really does it. We always needed to win our group to have a chance of progressing (avoiding the ABs in Cardiff) and I remain confident that EOS & the team are going to go all out achieve this.

Roll on Paris, 21 September, 21.00 !!!

redmca

And another thing ......
The current injury situation will force EOS to find a centre combination for the Italy match that doesn't include Horgan, a world class winger, and a 3rd rate centre.

Would like to see Trimble alongside Darcy, with Carney & Hickie on the wings, Dempsey at FB, Murphy on the bench.

daveirl

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Punchbowl

I would of thought that they would of given the first team a run in the Naminia game and rested them against Gerogia, so this is less than ideal.. The flipside I suppose is that aty least he can't get any more injured before the France game!!

I hope Hickie is now rested before the WC as I have this horrific image of him pulling up against Italy next week..

JCDUB

Good call earlier lads^^^^^, a ridiculous decision to play a French side only a matter of weeks before we go into World Cup group stages with France.

It was plainly obvious what tactics the French were going to employ. I read this morning that the centre Dourte swapped from inside to outside just before the match so he could man-mark BOD.

And his comments as follows sum it up:

Bayonne bruiser Richard Dourte had gleefully exclaimed his vengeful motivations in yesterday morning's edition of L'Equipe.

Recalling his last international appearance against Ireland, a 15-12 defeat six years ago, Dourthe chillingly expressed the thought that "if Ireland have to play without Brian O'Driscoll, it is better for us."

I know he didn't throw the punch but their intentions were clearly marked.

daveirl

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zAbbo

This wouldn't have happened against an Internation team, with the disciplinary cloud hanging over anyone wanted to involve in foul play.

Essentially we were up against a hard team with nothing to lose, who wanted to put down a marker for their fellow Frenchmen.

buck65

lads let's not get carried away, apart from Brian's injury, this will bring the lads on immensely

EdgarAllenPoo

They should have played Shannon or Clontarf's first team. There would have been a lot less shenanigans and BOD wouldn't be on soup for a month.

Did they seriously think a French side wasn't going in there with the intention of taking lumps off them? Idiots.

daveirl

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randomname2005

TheLedge wrote:

I know rugby is a tough sport but christ, I'd have hauled the players off the park if it really was as dirty as it sounded. And the wisdom of making a 27 year old inexperienced referee in charge? Pathetic.

Eh, inexperienced? This guy has refereed six nations matches and has been selected to referee in the world cup finals (including an irish match!!!)

R

Danie Gerber

You can never foresee injuries. Could have happened in an international friendly as well. South Africa almost lost three important players in their match against Namibia and that was an international friendly.

So what do you do? Tell the players to avoid contact? Don't play them in fear of them getting injured and risk having half a team that's not match fit? It's a no win..

Look at it from EOS point of view. They were in France at their hot weather training camp. Half his players haven't played for months. His first choice team haven't played together for even longer. They get a chance to play a match against an average French provincial side, that's close-by, not too strong and that give the guys a run against french oppo.

Makes sense to me.

EdgarAllenPoo

daveirl wrote:

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Honestly having never seen Bayonne play (or in fact heard of them before this match) I wouldn't know.

What I imagine EOS was looking for was to set down some form of pattern or routine for the pool games and see what level his first choice 15 was at in terms of match readiness which he could easily have done against an AIL side.

Think about it, it wouldn't be like a team such as Shannon would be a complete walkover considering it's a main feeder club for the provinces and every man on the Shannon 15 would want to perform to his best and stand out in front of EOS in the hopes of career progression.

buck65

and maybe they could raffle a teddy bear afterwards

Steffano2002

GDM wrote:

Honestly having never seen Bayonne play (or in fact heard of them before this match) I wouldn't know.

Bayonne would destroy Clontarf or Shannon with their B team...

daveirl

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Hugh_C

daveirl wrote:

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Spoken like a true lock! (I was a lock years ago).

Yeah, I'm inclined to agree. The hard, physical aspect to the game might inspire a bit of adrenaline amongst the team. Not necessarily for the backs, (big girls blouses that all backs are!) but for getting the blood up in the pack. It could also be a fantastic catalyst for BOD for the French match, and might inspire him to even greater things. I admit though that when I read the news last night I thought "Oh Sh1t".

thebaz

Steffano2002 wrote:

Bayonne would destroy Clontarf or Shannon with their B team...

Fair eneogh , but they wouldn't have taken out our star player a few weeks before we are meant to play France in the World Cup -- all i can say is one word -- REVENGE

Snickers Man

AbusesToilets wrote:

Not play the French?

Or the Kiwis.

daveirl

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Snickers Man

GDM wrote:

Honestly having never seen Bayonne play (or in fact heard of them before this match) I wouldn't know.

Bayonne is a charming little town in the Basque region of south west France, near Biarritz. i know this because I spent a fruitless hour or so at 7:30 in the morning there last year looking vainly for an Irish pub that might be showing the test from New Zealand. No such bloody luck. Irish pubs on the continent have similar opening times, if slightly later closing times, as they do here.

Bayonne has produced many famous players, the one I most remember being Patrice Lagisquet, the Bayonne Express, in the 1980s. He could shift through the gears, I tell you.

And of course Richard Dourthe will be familiar to many. He's the guy who was so fearsome in 1999 he made Tana Umaga chicken out of taking a catch simply by snorting in his direction.

Of course this means that as we are only taking seven three quarters and two of them will be crocked for the first match or two we are looking at backline options perming any four from Trimble, D'Arcy, Duffy, Carney and Hickie. Or you could throw in Murphy too but that leaves very scanty cover in the backline.

Could yet see David Wallace getting a run out in the centre in an Irish jersey.

Stranger things have happened....

burnedfaceman

thankfully injury is not as first feared, hopefully BODs lack of match fitness wont be a huge issue in RWC given the fitness regime the squad have been through over last few months. I have to agree with other posters the decision to play a french provinical team so close to playing france was retarded. surely an irish xv should have been mustered up from players not going to wc and given them an game

daveirl

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RuggieBear

daveirl wrote:

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you must play for some clumsy assed team Dave!!!?:D

Diamondmaker

Punchbowl wrote:

IThe flipside I suppose is that aty least he can't get any more injured before the France game!!
..

Haha al;ways look on the birght side I guess, very true bar a training injury or wardrobe malfunction he should be good for the France game, this may not have been the case knowing his look ) had he to take any part in possibly 3 more games til then!

It is unfortuanet that he will have only had Scot plus 60 mins game time maybe going into the France game though....

I know !! maybe they could line up Biarritz for some frinedly game time to get him up to speed in the meanwhile :rolleyes:

Steffano2002

daveirl wrote:

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Nice to hear a rugby player post something!

Jip

Just heard on the Radio 1 News headlines that the French Rugby authorities have ordered an inquiry into the incident, not that it would do alot of good.

Borzoi

Jip wrote:

not that it would do alot of good.

Indeed, expect the FRU to cite BOD for getting in the way of the Bayonne fist:D

Snickers Man

Actually there were cameras there. I just caught the end of the one o#clock news and there was a little piece about it. Coverage was pretty ropey though. Look out for it on the later bulletins.

Stev_o

I think the worst part of this injury so far is the way the media have blown it up completely. Yes i was as shocked when i found out what happens but seriously now that we know that its a fractured sinus and we know he will be grand the newspapers make it look as he is on his death bed. Hopefully it ll all blow over the last thing you need is nagging press trying to stir a riot

zAbbo

Stev_o wrote:

I think the worst part of this injury so far is the way the media have blown it up completely. Yes i was as shocked when i found out what happens but seriously now that we know that its a fractured sinus and we know he will be grand the newspapers make it look as he is on his death bed. Hopefully it ll all blow over the last thing you need is nagging press trying to stir a riot

The Sinus news only broke this morning, Newspapers would have had what news was available last night, in particular the quote from Eddie "if the Physio is worred, I'm worried" and that it was a suspected fractured cheekbone.

nacho libre

buck65 wrote:

lads let's not get carried away, apart from Brian's injury, this will bring the lads on immensely

i think it is a big deal as he'll miss out on the extra game time going into the French match. if there is a positive to this it is the lads have even more motivation now to teach the french team a lesson when they meet.

Punchbowl

The fact that it's all over the papers goes to show how much this WC has captured the imagination... We could be looking at another Euro-88 here..