Declan Kidney will wait to name Irish rugby side against Argentina

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Coach Declan Kidney

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Irish rugby coach Declan Kidney delays naming his team to face Argentina this weekend due to several injuries incurred recently.

Kidney was due to name is starting team on Tuesday but has postponed the decision until Friday.

It is already known that Rob Kearney and Luke Fitzgerald will be out and the possibility of Gordon D'Arcy and Brian O'Driscoll starting are also slim.

O'Driscoll did line out for training on Tuesday evening but he was limited to non-contact action.

Tommy Bowe is also a question mark despite the player ruling himself fine after injuring his calf during the All Blacks game last weekend.

Sports fanatics in Ireland are guesstimating that Keith Earls will replace full back Kearney with Andrew Trimble stepping in for Fitzgerald.

“We had a few guys sitting out today’s session — David Wallace, Gordon D’Arcy, Stephen Ferris and Tommy Bowe,” said team manager Paul McNaughton on Tuesday.

“They have various knocks while some other guys, such as Brian O’Driscoll and Damien Varley, have done modified non-contact work. We expect Brian to be OK. He got a bruise on his AC joint, but he trained this morning, though it was not a full contact session.

“All of those players are under consideration for selection and we don’t anticipate any problem with them. We’ll wait until Friday to name the team because it’s a Sunday game. We just need more time to think and also the injuries should be clarified by then.

“We wouldn’t take a risk on any player’s fitness. You can’t send out anyone who is 90 per cent fit and hope for the best.”

Despite a tremendous game against the All Blacks last weekend they suffered a crushing defeat taking its toll on the team.

“I don’t have any great theories on the injury count, it’s coincidental,” said McNaughton. “It was a fairly physical game and we made as many tackles in the first half as there would be in a normal game.

“That doesn’t help the injury toll. It’s just unfortunate. We have an eight-day turnaround so we can take our time. We’ll train tomorrow and have a rest day on Thursday. Hopefully everyone will be fine by Friday.”

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