The Wallabies suffered a triple blow ahead of the crucial second Test against the British and Irish Lions in Melbourne on Saturday.
Inside centre Pat McCabe and wing Digby Ioane have been ruled out of any further participation in the Test series.
Fullback Berrick Barnes is out of the second Test, but may still feature in the third and final international.
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Both players sustained injuries during last Saturday’s 21-23 first Test loss in Brisbane – which will require further examination by specialists, ruling out any chance of their appearing further in the series.
McCabe re-injured his neck in a similar location to an injury first sustained on last year’s year-end tour. He will be seeing specialists in Sydney in the coming days to ascertain the way forward following further scans.
Ioane suffered internal damage to his right shoulder and will also require further follow up scans, with surgery a possibility.
The pair will be joined on the sideline for the second Test by fullback Berrick Barnes, who was concussed in the first half of last weekend’s match.
His recovery is being managed according to the IRB concussion guidelines.
Barnes – who has a long history of concussion related incidents, including a stint on the sidelines with sportsman’s migraine – will not be considered for Saturday’s second Test, although it is hoped he will have recovered in time to be considered for the third game in Sydney.
The news is better for inside centre Christian Leali’ifano, who is making an excellent recovery after he too sustained concussion, in the opening minute of the first Test.
Leali’ifano, whose management has also followed the IRB guidelines, has made good progress and is expected to be able to be considered for selection for this weekend.
Outside centre Adam Ashley-Cooper, who underwent scans on his shoulder after the Test in Brisbane, is also on the improve, with medical staff confident he will be available in time for the game following further rehabilitation of the injury.
Coach Arthur fired
Some harsh words about the way the got rid of Mickey Arthur. Kry vir julle Aussies.
“Coach-killer” was not among the 50 things. It is a term popularised in American and Australian football, and refers to players of considerable talent and skill who fail to step up to the role their coach prescribes for them. Once results have deteriorated so badly that administrators removed from the fray decide that things must change, the choice between the coach doing his level best and the high profile players flattering to deceive seldom falls in favour of the mentor.
Whatever Arthur insisted while speaking bravely and without excuses in Bristol on Monday, there can be no mistake his rapid and unprecedented exit from the Australian team, on the very day the Ashes tour bus was loading up for the trip to Taunton, had its genesis in the repeated failures of players he had invested enormous time and faith in.
This was by no means a victory for player power over an unpopular martinet. Instead it was the natural conclusion to a saga of mediocrity, ineptitude and dishonesty perpetrated by the highest paid group of cricketers Australia have ever had. All would have felt culpable in some way or another for Arthur’s exit on Monday, and all have reason to. Some more than others.
“It was the natural conclusion to a saga of mediocrity, ineptitude and dishonesty perpetrated by the highest paid group of cricketers Australia have ever had. All would have felt culpable in some way or another for Arthur’s exit on Monday, and all have reason to.”
David Warner should be pondering why it is Arthur flying out of the country and not himself. It is not an easy question to answer. The punch hurled at Joe Root after a dreadfully poor decision to be out with a group of players he should have been advising to stay in was the latest in a series of betrayals that dates back to overseas tours of the West Indies and England in 2012. Arthur had rated Warner so highly he encouraged his development as a potential leader. But the extra seniority was taken advantage of, so much so that Arthur would impose a curfew on Warner later in the year.
How often the curfew was faithfully adhered to can only be guessed at, but by the time of this year’s IPL Warner was telling Arthur and others that he was not drinking at all, when those players actually in India needed only venture down to the hotel bar to be certain that was not the case. The Twitter fiasco soon followed. Finally Birmingham confirmed that for Warner, Arthur was no longer a source of fruitful advice like the stance adjustment before his 2011 Hobart hundred but a ponderous schoolmaster, there primarily to run deceitful rings around.
Shane Watson also has reason for introspection. Not so much for the kind of indiscipline shown by Warner as for an utter failure to step into the jobs Arthur thought him capable of. When the name of Jacques Kallis was bandied about by Arthur to indicate the influence Watson could have it was not a blithe display of faith – the belief in Watson’s ability was genuine. At another time Arthur said he would have “failed as a coach” if Watson did not start making regular Test hundreds. As it turned out Watson, so wrapped up in debates over his best role, T20 duties and differences with the captain Michael Clarke, did not score a single one with Arthur in charge.
Lastly, there is the burden of guilt on Clarke’s shoulders. Clarke had initially advocated Steve Rixon’s promotion from fielding coach, following their history with New South Wales. But when Arthur was chosen the pair built up a decent relationship, the turning point for which would be the exits of Ricky Ponting and Michael Hussey.
Privately, Arthur was desperate not to lose either from the team before the Ashes; Clarke was much less perturbed. Arthur’s judgement would be proved the sounder, when the loss of the two senior men could not be adequately covered in any sense. The recall of Brad Haddin, another to have his qualities warmly espoused by Arthur in times of vulnerability, was a belated admission of the earlier error.
Clarke, preoccupied with his back trouble and the need to score runs, was not around often enough to maintain order. Arthur, lacking the support provided by Ponting and Hussey, was not considered heavyweight enough by some players to enforce it. And so Mohali happened, and the 4-0 hiding by India, and the horrid Champions Trophy campaign, and the Walkabout. Arthur would be held to account, and his job handed over to a former Australian Test player in Lehmann. Why? Ask Lachlan Stevens.
http://www.supersport.com/cricket/international/news/130624/Mickey_Arthur_sacked_as_Aus_coach
This is big news in Australia,
http://www.espncricinfo.com/magazine/content/story/644841.html
Posted by ARad on (June 24, 2013, 19:22 GMT)
This decision may work but it is a huge gamble because of the timing. There couldn’t have been any interview process that went into this appointment and CA still installs Lehmann as their coach until 2015! What does it tell about CA’s management structure and their ability to plan? More heads should roll but at least some of them should be Mickey Arthur’s superiors in the CA chain.
Posted by Sportius on (June 24, 2013, 17:56 GMT)
Feel Sorry for Arthur.To blame it all on cultural differences and earning respect of the players would be a pretty dumb call. While It is true that Proteas work different than Aussies, player discipline is not something a coach/captain can guarantee. Cricket will always have a bunch of renegades who plays the game by their rules. Every successful team in history had at least one such player(Warne, Sourav Ganguly,Imran Khan,KP, Botham, Viv, Gibbs ….). When they are doing well indiscipline matter little to anyone.It is when things go wrong they need to control themselves . To be a professional cricketer and act like one is up to individual players. The list above was regarded as greats because when they did not do too well they were ready to discipline themselves and go out there and play better. Sacking a coach just means change of rules/methods. .Let us hope Darren Lehmann rules work better than MA’s
LIONS TOUR DIARY
Kurtley Beale
The conundrum facing the Wallabies with James O’Connor is this: should they move the No.10 to the right wing, Kurtley Beale to No.10 and Israel Folau to fullback, they would be treading that fine line between revamping a back line and disrupting it.
With Digby Ioane and Berrick Barnes gone and Adam Ashley-Cooper in doubt, there will already be a minimum of two changes to the starting XV back line.
There are other issues with moving O’Connor to wing and one of them is called George North. There is no way O’Connor would have been able to deny the Welsh giant in the way Folau did for that disallowed try in Brisbane, nor would he have scored the try Folau did in that space that exists on the Lions’ flanks.
Coach Robbie Deans finds himself between a rock and a hard place, and coaches who find themselves in those uncomfortable confines commonly stick to their original plan.
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