Ireland are continuing to monitor Chris Henry and Jared Payne ahead of this Sunday’s Guinness Series encounter with Georgia.
Mick Kearney revealed the illness that forced Henry out of the South Africa game was a migraine. An IRFU spokesperson had previously stated that the Ulster flanker had been taken ill with a virus on the morning of the 29-15 victory. ‘The working diagnosis is a severe migraine,’ Kearney stated.
The Ireland team manager was joined at Carton House this afternoon by his namesake, Rob Kearney, who reasserted his pleasure at penning a new, three-year deal with Leinster. ‘The deal was actually done maybe three or four weeks ago, it just wasn’t signed until last week. They thought
the best time to announce it was this week, so it was all done very quickly and very stress free.’
Payne, who made his debut against the Springboks on Saturday, will go for another consultation on his sprained foot on Wednesday before a final call is made on his participation this weekend. Ireland coach Joe Schmidt may opt to pair Gordon D’Arcy with Robbie Henshaw (moving over to outside centre) for the Georgia game if there are any serious doubts over Payne’s fitness.
Mick Kearney told Word in Sport, ‘Looking back over the video it was quite an innocuous incident where Jared tackled a player. He did try to run it off, but it tightened up and was quite sore. He’s still quite sore but we’ll probably know more tomorrow. The swelling will have gone down, he’ll have another scan and further medical assessment.’
Ireland have called up Darren Cave, Tadhg Furlong, Robin Copeland and Andrew Conway to their training squad. Kearney was asked about Luke Fitzgerald receiving an invitation to training in Maynooth but said the Leinster back would remain with his province.
