Ireland sweating on injuries to Mack Hansen, James Ryan and James Lowe ahead of All Blacks quarter-final
- 2551
Andy Farrell says Ireland won't know the extent of the injuries suffered by Mack Hansen, James Lowe and James Ryan until tomorrow at the earliest.
Hansen was forced off with a calf injury during the first half of Ireland's 36-14 win over Scotland that booked their place in the quarter-finals, while Lowe was replaced at half-time after suffering an eye injury and Ryan re-injured his wrist but finished the game.
Already, Ireland are likely to be without Robbie Henshaw for next week's World Cup battle against New Zealand and Farrell faces an anxious wait to see if there's more damage to his squad before he decides whether to call up a replacement.
Keith Earls sat out the warm-up before tonight's game, but is not believed to be injured.
"Obviously, we'll see how they pull up in the morning but Mack went off with a HIA and when he came back on he felt his calf straight away, so we got him off," Farrell said.
"James Ryan has a bit of a knock on his wrist that we have to assess more, so we'll see how he is now.
"James Lowe got a bang in the eye, his eye shut and he couldn't really see much. His vision was coming back towards the end of the game, which is good.
"Then, a few more bangs and bruises that we'll need to assess tomorrow."
Farrell was delighted with the display at the Stade de France where Ireland ran out comprehensive winners.
"I think it was a special performance because Scotland really came of the blocks," he said.
"Obviously we scored the try early doors, which was a great start but they really came out of the blocks after that.
"They threw everything at us, I thought our attitude, our defence to try and keep them out for long spells was the making of the game.
"We were calm enough and clinical enough when we got back down the other end of the field to put some points on the board.
"A really clinical first half performance and it had to be because they are a great side Scotland, to get that many points at half-time was a good innings from us."
Next week's game is a rematch against the side who knocked Ireland out at the quarter-final stage four years' ago.
"Well it's what dreams are made of," Farrell said.
"As far as a quarter-final is concerned it doesn't get any tougher, the respect we have got for New Zealand is through the roof and hopefully they have got a bit of respect for us.
"We will dust ourselves off first of all and recover properly from this one.
"But I would say that a couple of weeks ago we got some stick from walking around and thanking our fans, when they turn out in their thousands like this it is the least we can do."
__________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________
