Ioane ruled out of Ireland game

Rugby: Australia winger Digby Ioane has been ruled out of Saturday's World Cup clash with Ireland because of a fractured thumb. Ioane sustained the injury during Sunday's 32-6 Pool C win over Italy after accidentally coming into contact with the boot of Mirco Bergamasco.

The 26-year-old will be operated on and will remain with the Wallabies in New Zealand with a view to playing later in the tournament.

In an case, James O’Connor was always likely to return to the starting line-up for Saturday's game in Auckland, while Robbie Deans also has the option of bringing in Drew Mitchell.

Tony Buckley was the only slight Irish injury concern at the outset of the week, as his shoulder injury underwent a scan today, but manager Paul McNaughton was confident they would be picking from a fully fit squad.

There is likely to be at least three changes for Ireland, with Cian Healy, Seán O’Brien, Eoin Reddan and, perhaps, Rob Kearney all coming back into the starting XV.

On current form, the encounter is one Ireland have little chance of winning, but McNaughton believes that if they click, they can topple the Wallabies to put one foot in the quarter-finals.

“The guys have played against Australia before. They know them,” he said. “There’s a level of confidence that on our day, when we play well and fire on all cylinders, we can beat Australia.

“We have the ability and the team to beat Australia. We have to play very well and better than we have done over the last four or five matches. We’ll have to improve on what we did yesterday, but do seem to produce our best when our backs are against the wall.

“Underdogs is not a position we’d go looking for. We’re clearly underdogs based on the record over the last few games, but that doesn’t worry us. But there’s a strong belief that if we get all parts of our game right, we can provide very fine opposition for Australia.”

There was a sense of deflation at Stadium Taranaki as the World Cup’s oldest team failed to produce the emphatic start to the tournament they desperately needed.

Conditions were poor and the USA were charged by the 10th anniversary of September 11, but they should still have been dispatched with greater conviction.

“We’ve all had a chance to reflect and watch the performance on video,” said McNaughton. “We were disappointed, disappointed not to get the bonus points and execute a few more try opportunities that we had. We’re happy with the win. All weekend we saw the so-called lower ranked teams put it up to the higher ranked teams.

“Everybody going into the game knew we were going into a game and not a practice session. That’s the way it turned out. We’re disappointed we didn’t get the fourth try, despite having a number of opportunities.

“We didn’t get it and there was some poor handling associated with that. Nevertheless, we’re happy to win and must move forward now.”