Irish to assess injuries

Auckland - Ireland centre Gordon D’Arcy and lock Paul O’Connell have hamstring injuries ahead of their World Cup Pool C encounter with Russia on Sunday.

D'Arcy and O'Connell had scans Monday to determine the extent of hamstring injuries picked up during Saturday's 15-6 upset over Australia at Eden Park, a team spokesman said.

Both players will be monitored and they have yet to be ruled out for selection for the Russia game in Rotorua, the spokesman said.

The Irish team will be announced on Friday.

Meanwhile, the Ireland squad is spending some downtime in the resort town of Taupo, south of Auckland.

"With a bit of a longer turnaround this week then we had for the Australia game, it’s great to be able to have that extra day to let the bumps and bruises settle before we hit the training pitch again," Irish lock Donncha O’Callaghan said Monday.

"There was an incredible buzz around the lads when we were setting off from Auckland to come down to Taupo.

"Our goal has always been to qualify from our pool and just because we had a big win on Saturday night, it guarantees us nothing.

"We have two games left against two teams who will challenge us physically across the park, so we want to get ourselves right for that.

"We worked really hard last week with the coaches both on and off the pitch to get things right.

"But the challenge is now to keep the standards of our preparations up this week to reach the Russia game in as good a shape as possible."