On Saturday, Joe Schmidt took a conciliatory line on the Mike Brown/Conor Murray debate, saying he was sure that Brown wouldn't have kicked the Murray in the head on purpose. He did, however, suggest that sticking the boot in those circumstances is 'fraught with risk'.
48 hours on, Schmidt admitted that there were fears among the backroom staff that Murray might have suffered serious damage to his eye. Michael Corcoran asked Joe Schmidt for his 'mature reflection' on Ireland's 21-10 defeat in Twickenham on Saturday. More positively, he said Jared Payne in likely to train this week and should be ready in time for Italy.
Conor's got eight stitches in his eye. There was a fear that there might be damage to the eye, but there's not thankfully. That was something that was...obviously he didn't come back on.
On the good news front, Jared Payne is looking to train today and train fully tomorrow. We've got guys filtering back in instead of going the other direction which it has been.
In his post-match press conference, Schmidt sighed that Ireland couldn't 'catch a trick' (aka, catch a break) in this year's championship. Today, he glanced at the positives, citing Ultan Dillane's powerful 15 minutes and the displays of Josh Van der Flier and Stuart McCloskey.
Josh grew into the game and got better as the game went on. Stu carried well and is learning everytime that he comes to training. He got a heck of a lot out of that Twickenham game.
Dillane, in the 15 minutes that he got, made a super impact. The lineout steal and making a very good linebreak as well. It was frsutrating that it was one of those things we didn't get to finish off the back of.
