Ireland face an anxious wait to discover the full extent of Joey Carbery’s ankle injury after a routine victory over Italy but the head coach, Joe Schmidt, is optimistic the New Zealand-born fly-half will not be ruled out of the World Cup.
Carbery’s injury scare threatened to take the gloss off an impressive World Cup warm-up win for Ireland when he left the field on an electric cart after 50 minutes in obvious pain. Up until then he had shone in what was a second-string Ireland side, scoring the first of five tries, and while Schmidt will learn the extent of the injury in the coming days he did confirm that the 23-year-old had not sustained a fracture.
If Carbery were to be ruled out of the World Cup it would be a considerable blow for Ireland and Schmidt, who would be without his No 2 fly-half with Johnny Sexton having struggled for form during the Six Nations and, at 34, in need of rotation in Japan. Unfortunately, however, it goes with the territory of these World Cup warm-up matches and Carbery’s will not be the first high-profile injury before the tournament begins next month.
“The good news is there’s no fracture, it’s a bit puffy on the inside of his left ankle,” said Schmidt. “We’ll give it 24 to 48 hours for the swelling to go down. I was really happy with Joey’s performance today. Defensively he got himself into the right places, and that’s a challenge sometimes. I thought he ran the game very well, showing the variety of his kicking game and running game. I thought as a package Joey’s game was really tidy.”
Carbery’s injury aside, Schmidt would have seen plenty to be pleased about and equally, no doubt, what needs improvement in a comfortable if subdued victory. Gary Ringrose was the standout performer for Ireland, at his classy best with the ball in hand, and Schmidt will have been impressed by his side’s accuracy in the Italy 22, particularly in the first half. Ultimately they ended with five tries but Schmidt will know there are sterner tests to come against England and Wales.
Ireland led 19-10 at the interval, twice going behind to Italy tries but rarely looking anything like comfortable winners. Dave Kearney might have scored the first try had he been able to gather Carbery’s well-weighted kick ahead but Italy scrambled and took a 5-0 lead when Maxime Mbanda pounced from close range after a driving maul. Ireland responded through Carbery, who was the beneficiary of fine hands from Chris Farrell, the fly-half converting to edge his side ahead.
His opposite number, Carlo Canna, was the next to score, dotting down Giulio Bisegni’s grubber after Tommaso Benvenuti’s break had created the initial opportunity. Ireland moved up a gear for the rest of the first half with tries for Kearney on the left, after quick hands from Ringrose and an unselfish final pass from Jordan Larmour, who also teed up Andrew Conway on the right soon after.
Jordi Murphy, another who ended the match in credit, was on target with No 4 after the interval and the replacement scrum-half Kieran Marmion charged down Ian McKinley’s clearance kick to add the fifth. It was a scrappy final quarter – apart from a fine cameo from Tadhg Beirne off the bench – but Italy battled manfully and were perhaps harshly denied an inventive lineout try.
“It’s very hard to contextualise when you have your first hit-out,” said Italy’s head coach, Conor O’Shea. “I thought there were a lot of positives for where we are physically; we were able to more than hold our own. It comes to the stage now about what we can control, not what the opposition does to us.”
