Rugby World Cup warm-up
Ireland wait for results of scan on O'Donnell hip injury
Tom Hamilton
August 8, 2015
© Stu Forster/Getty Images

CARDIFF, Wales -- Ireland face a nervous wait on the prognosis of Tommy O'Donnell's injury after he was stretchered off with a hip injury in the closing stages of their commanding win over Wales.

O'Donnell performed well until he was stretchered off in the final 10 minutes with a hip injury. Joe Schmidt confirmed post-match the openside has been taken to hospital and they will be keeping their "fingers crossed" the injury is not as bad as first feared.

"Tommy's gone to hospital to get a scan," Schmidt said. "At the moment we know he's hurt his hip but we don't know what the injury is. We'll know more in the next 24 to 48 hours."

He added: "He made 14 or 15 tackles, he got at least three turnovers. I thought he started the game strongly; he's such a dynamic player for us. We're just going to cross our fingers and wait and see."

Andrew Trimble suffered a "mild foot sprain" but Schmidt played down concerns over his knock in what was the winger's first Test match since 2013.

In the end it was a matter of job done for Schmidt as he saw his side outscore Wales five tries to three.

"There were aspects we were happy with. Our set piece gave us a good opportunity to get into the game, our scrum and lineout. Some of our defensive pressure early on was effective - those were the positive aspects. The disappointing bits were our second-half discipline and the way we loosened up defensively.

"There were some guys who put their hands up. Keith Earls got player of the match but Tommy did well, Donnacha Ryan got through a huge volume of work and he bosses the lineout well for us. I thought the skipper [Jamie Heaslip] went well and there are a number of guys who went well."

Schmidt will now weigh up the various dynamics of his squad before deciding whether to trim the squad in the coming week. For his Wales counterpart Warren Gatland, his cuts will be made after their North Wales training camp in the coming week.

Gatland was left to concede the better team had won but he was pleased with their late rally.

"We'll have a good look at the tape but I'm disappointed with the number of turnovers," said Gatland.

"We played better after the break and scored some nice tries but you can't go out and make that many turnovers, especially against Ireland, and to give them soft points. The challenge for us is working on the depth of our squad and giving players an opportunity to get up to a certain level. We just didn't play that well in the first half and made it easy for them."

© Tom Hamilton

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