As expected, the Munster and Ireland secondrow Paul O'Connell has been ruled out of the initial stages of the Six Nations Championship and will not be included in the Irish squad to be announced tomorrow.
An official pronouncement from the IRFU yesterday confirmed that, as a result of last Wednesday's setback in training with Munster, further tests will be required on his back injury over the next few days to establish the extent of the injury.
Pending the results of those tests, this raises the prospect O'Connell may have to undergo an operation for the disc problem that has effectively sidelined him since the World Cup, his only game since the 30-15 defeat to Argentina in the Parc des Princes on September 30th having been a 35-minute run-out for Young Munster in the AIL League last Saturday week.
O'Connell had been named on the Munster bench against Ulster the preceding evening only for the game to be snowed off and was initially named in an enlarged Munster squad on Wednesday for yesterday's Heineken European Cup game away to Clermont Auvergne.
His chances of appearing in the Six Nations look remote, the latest development raising real concerns that the injury will be season-threatening, and the fervent hope being that it transpires to be no worse than that.
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