An injury to Ireland’s young flanker Erin King has cast a little shadow over Ireland’s preparations for Sunday’s game against Wales at Rodney Parade.
The 21-year-old tore some of the cartilage off the back of the patella tendon in a knee after just six-minutes of the defeat to England in Musgrave Park last week. The fact that she played the remainder of the match speaks eloquently of her courage and character.
King underwent surgery yesterday, to an injury that will unfortunately keep her sidelined for somewhere between six and 12 months and will therefore miss Ireland’s remaining Six Nations matches against Wales and Scotland, as well as the Women’s Rugby World Cup 2025, which takes place in England in August and September.
She has made a tremendous impact since coming from the Sevens programme to 15s encapsulated in being named World Rugby Women’s XVs Breakthrough Player of the Year last November. King admitted: “I’m heartbroken to have suffered a serious knee.
“It feels very unfair right now, but I’ve had the best few months with this team, and I can’t wait to support in every way I can from the sidelines.
“It will be a long road ahead, but with the support I have from family, friends and team-mates around me, I will learn to accept that everything happens for a reason and if I stick to the process and rehab programme set out by the medical team, I’ll be back better.”
Ireland head coach Scott Bemand explained: “I’m aware that the doctors have said to her they were surprised she could carry on, but she said it was just a niggle. It actually deteriorated after the game.
“The group is close and stuff like that does affect you, but we understand that injuries can happen. I’ve got to say from the group they’ve still [rallied] around her really well. Erin doesn’t want us moping. Erin wants us to go out and put out a performance this week.
“We’ll take a bit of Erin’s energy, and we’ll bring it into training this week and we’ll take it to Wales with us. Because she’s still part of the group, she’s still around and she would want nothing more than for us to go and put out a good win in Wales.”
Johnny Sexton’s new full-time coaching career, first with Andy Farrell’s British & Irish Lions tourists to Australia and then with Ireland national teams, men and women from age-grade to senior, means that Bemand and his coaches will have access to the former Leinster and Ireland captain.
Bemand said: “He’s [Sexton] got a couple of things that he’s going to be doing first in terms of other environments. Currently we use Gareth Steenson [former Ireland Under-21 and Exeter Chiefs outhalf] in doing the kicking with us and that will continue through to the World Cup. We’ll have touch points; it will be a collaborative effort.
“There’s obviously a good number of pathway people coming through and utilising somebody like Johnny and Steenson’s skills within the pathway group, but Steenson will continue to do the kicking stuff with us through to the World Cup.”
Wales lost 24-21 to Scotland at the Hive stadium in Edinburgh, were hammered 67-12 by England in Cardiff, and 42-12 at the Stade Amedee-Domenech last time out. Ireland have also lost to France and England but in between produced an excellent performance in beating Italy 54-12 in Parma.
Bemand is well aware of the expectation that his team need to kick on and win the final two matches in the tournament starting on Sunday in Newport. “Absolutely. We said we want to close the gap on the top two and we came out disappointed against France not to have converted in that game.
“We have shown that we can stick with England but disappointed to let the game get away from us as well so there are bits we can tidy up from that.
“Now we’re up to fifth in the world rankings and that comes with a bit of expectation. That’s class. It’s the position we wanted to be in so there is an expectation to go there and get a performance and we know from Italy what it’s like to get a winning performance and we know we can back that up again.
“If we can impose our style on them [Wales], we can create some problems. If we sit back away from home and invite them to show what they can do, then we will just make it more difficult for ourselves.”
Enya Breen and Edel McMahon are available having recovered from knocks that ruled them out of last weekend’s game. The Ireland team to face Wales will be named at lunchtime.
