Ireland have been forced to draft in two players from their World Cup stand-by squad after being hit by a second high-profile withdrawal in 12 hours. Wests Tigers winger Shannon McDonnell has followed his fellow Australian Brett White, the Melbourne Storm prop, in pulling out of Ireland's 24-man squad through injury.
White, who was also originally in Australia's squad, has been told he needs off-season foot surgery and is not expected back in full training until mid-January, while McDonnell has a hamstring injury.
Ireland coach Andy Kelly has been left unhappy with both the timing and the nature of the announcements, which came just four days before the squad fly out to Sydney to set up their training camp.
"It's come so late," he said. "We had no knowledge of White's medical problem and you would have thought he would have flagged it up with us. And you don't get problems with a hamstring overnight. Any professional person would have let us know about it so that we could make contingency plans."
In their places, Kelly has called up another Australian, former Hull second rower Shayne McMenemy, and Brendan Guilfoyle, a prop forward with Limerick club Treaty City Titans.
Ireland open their World Cup campaign against Tonga at Parramatta on October 27th and meet Samoa at the same venue on November 5th.
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