Ireland are set to kick off the Six Nations next week without two of their most influential and experienced backline players. Bundee Aki and Hugo Keenan, key members of last year\u2019s British & Irish Lions tour to Australia, should have been involved against France next week but are now facing spells on the sidelines for contrasting reasons.<\/p>\n
Aki has not travelled to Ireland\u2019s training camp in Portugal following a \u201cmisconduct complaint\u201d relating to an alleged post-match incident with match officials at the weekend after Connacht\u2019s URC game against Leinster.<\/p>\n
The veteran centre will now face an independent hearing on Wednesday with the Irish Rugby Football Union confirming he is staying at home for disciplinary reasons. \u201cThe IRFU does not tolerate any form of disrespect shown towards match officials and does not condone actions that fall below the standards expected of players representing Irish rugby,\u201d read a statement.<\/p>\n
The 35-year-old Aki, who has won 68 caps for Ireland, was an early temporary replacement in last weekend\u2019s game and was aggrieved after he was struck in the face by Charlie Tector\u2019s head in the first-half. Any suspension would inevitably affect his tournament participation, with Ireland due to face the defending champions France in Paris next Thursday. The uncapped Ulster centre Jude Postlethwaite has been added to the squad in Aki\u2019s place.<\/p>\n
In a second significant blow, Keenan is now a major injury doubt amid reports he has suffered a broken thumb in training. The full-back, the try-scoring hero of the Lions\u2019 series-clinching win over the Wallabies in Melbourne, had been expected to start against France despite not having played since the Lions tour after undergoing hip surgery.<\/p>\n
With Ireland already missing several injured props and with doubts still surrounding the fitness of Tadhg Furlong, it makes life significantly trickier for the head coach, Andy Farrell, as he contemplates his starting XV for Paris. Jacob Stockdale could now slot in at full-back with Stuart McCloskey at inside centre.<\/p>\n
Ulster\u2019s Stuart McCloskey is expected to start at inside centre for Ireland in France. Photograph: Geraint Nicholas\/Inpho\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n
France, meanwhile, are also having to come to terms with the loss of their giant prop Uini Atonio, who has been advised to retire from rugby with immediate effect after suffering a heart attack. The 35-year-old Atonio, a lynchpin of France\u2019s scrum for many years, remains under surveillance in intensive care. His condition is described as stable but his club La Rochelle have indicated that his recovery will require a lengthy period of convalescence.<\/p>\n
To say the 145-kg Atonio will leave a massive hole in the French pack is an understatement and, when combined with the current surge of injuries to top-level props in Ireland and England, raises the question of whether the increasing pace and physical intensity of the modern game might be a factor.<\/p>\n
England\u2019s head of team performance, Phil Morrow, says the demand on props \u201cis high\u201d these days in a sport which increasingly requires players of all shapes and sizes to be more dynamic athletes. However, he believes it is too early to tell whether there is a problem that goes beyond a few individuals in the same position being unavailable at the same time.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m always really conscious that if you take a snapshot sample you could jump to the wrong conclusion,\u201d said Morrow, who was at Saracens for years. \u201cThere was one year at the club when we had six broken arms after not having a broken arm for 10 years. We hadn\u2019t changed anything.<\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone at the time wanted to find out why, but I would say over the long term it averaged itself out. We\u2019ll keep analysing it and seeing whether the trend continues but we don\u2019t want to jump to conclusions.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ireland are set to kick off the Six Nations next week without two of their most influential and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":443119,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-443118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=443118"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443118\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/443119"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=443118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=443118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=443118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}