RUGBY: Keith Wood remained upbeat last night about the prognosis for his return to rugby in two months despite the latest injury to befall the 31- year-old Irish captain. Gerry Thornley reports.
Wood underwent arthroscopic surgery on his shoulder last weekend and will be sidelined for an estimated 8 weeks.
Following on from the torn calf muscle which sidelined him for four months around this time last season, and the neck injury which effectively put paid to the first half of this campaign, Wood has now already been ruled out of at least Ireland's opening two Six Nations' games - away to Scotland and Italy on February 16th and 22nd - and most probably the game at home to France on March 8th.
The Irish management will thus most likely persevere with Brian O'Driscoll as captain, given he led the side to those autumn wins over Australia and Argentina, and of further consolation to them is the continuing good form of the established Shane Byrne and the rejuvenated Frankie Sheahan.
Nevertheless, this shoulder problem is totally unrelated to the leaking disc in his neck which has now cleared up, and Wood maintained that "it could have been an awful lot worse. My surgeon was delighted with the operation. He just tidied it all up and the important thing was that the main structures of the shoulder are fine, which maybe was part of the fear."
Wood is hopeful of running again on Monday and of being given the all-clear for more intensive training when he returns to his surgeon in three weeks.
"I won't do much in the next three weeks as the main thing is to make sure that the shoulder is reconstructed properly."
Wood first realised there was a problem when he made a tackle on his return appearance as a replacement for Harlequins against Leeds on December 22nd, and feeling very sore afterwards. He has played only three games for his club this season and once for Ireland, away to Russia in the World Cup qualifier last September.
Indeed, by the time the French game comes around Wood will have played in only four of Eddie O'Sullivan's first 15 games in charge, and will have played in no more than a dozen games over 16 months.
Yet, although the prophets of doom will maintain that dark clouds now hang over his World Cup participation, Wood says he's far from frustrated by this recent spate of problems.
"Where would that get me? Besides, I still played 23 matches last season and by the time I went to New Zealand I wasn't exactly perfect but I had done a couple of months' good training before I got there, and that's what I intend doing before I come back this time. I'm going to have two months' of fitness training, which is great, and I'm going to go absolutely mad on the training."
