One of the stars of Ireland’s autumn clean sweep could be out of the Rugby World Cup

Poor Rhys Ruddock. Ever since the end of Ireland's highly successful autumn series, the flanker seems to have been cursed. Ruddock was thrown into the Irish starting team on the morning of the daunting clash with South Africa and performed excellently, scoring a try. He was also in the side two weeks later when Joe Schmidt's men ended the autumn with a 100% record after a spectacular win over Australia. But two arm injuries severely limited his participation with club and country for the remainder of the season, with Ruddock missing out on both Six Nations glory and a Champions Cup semi-final against Toulon. What is unfortunate for Ruddock is that the man he initially replaced, Chris Henry, has now returned to full-fitness and regained the form that saw him a regular in Schmidt's side during the victorious 2014 Six Nations campaign. Captaining Emerging Ireland in the Tbilisi Cup this summer was meant to be his chance to remind the Ireland coach of his World Cup credentials but yet another arm injury, suffered during yesterday's 33-7 win over Uruguay, could have ended his hopes of competing in the marquee tournament.

“It’s early days, but he’ll go for an x-ray and the result of that x-ray will tell us where he is,” Clarke told Irish rugby after the game. “He’s had a knock there before, but I’m not the expert. It would be wrong to second guess the x-ray. I’ve concern for him as an individual, but he’s a resilient young man, he’ll bounce back. It rules him out of the rest of the tournament.”

The back row is an insanely competitive area for the Irish team and even had he stayed fit, there is a good chance that Ruddock may have been one of the unlucky ones on selection day. As it stands, it looks like one of Jordi Murphy, Chris Henry and Tommy O'Donnell may miss out. Who would want to be the man who has to make that decision?