{"id":285719,"date":"2026-01-15T12:25:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-15T12:25:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/285719\/"},"modified":"2026-01-15T12:25:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T12:25:09","slug":"joe-mccarthy-gutted-for-brother-paddy-after-significant-injury-in-leinster-la-rochelle-classic-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/285719\/","title":{"rendered":"Joe McCarthy \u2018gutted\u2019 for brother Paddy after \u2018significant\u2019 injury in Leinster-La Rochelle classic \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

No sooner have Joe and Paddy McCarthy belatedly been able to put a run of games together than the brotherly partnership has been cruelly interrupted. Alas therefore, the boyhood dream of playing together for Ireland will also have to be suspended for the time being as well.<\/p>\n

The extent of Paddy McCarthy\u2019s absence has yet to be revealed after he sustained a \u201csignificant\u201d foot injury when slipping awkwardly in tackling Will Skelton in Leinster\u2019s drama-fuelled 25-24 win over La Rochelle.<\/p>\n

However, he is out of Leinster\u2019s Champions Cup pool finale against Bayonne in the Stade Jean Dauger on Saturday (kick-off 4.15pm local time\/3.15pm Irish) and the start of the Six Nations, which kicks off on Thursday, February 5th when France host Ireland in Paris.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, it doesn\u2019t look great, to be honest,\u201d admits the elder brother a little forlornly. \u201cIt looks like it\u2019s not going to be a quick turnaround so gutted for him because he was on a roll, he\u2019s had a great start to the season. More so from our team perspective, we\u2019ll really miss him over the next few weeks and months. I\u2019m going to miss playing with him. I won\u2019t have him as a roomie over in Bayonne this weekend.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although they both came through Blackrock College and Trinity, the brothers hadn\u2019t played together until Paddy won his fourth Leinster cap as a replacement away to the Dragons in November 2023. The only other occasion was in Leinster\u2019s festive win over Munster last season in Limerick, when Joe started and Paddy was again a replacement.<\/p>\n

Although Paddy (22) broke into the Irish team to feature in all four November internationals, Joe (24) was still sidelined by the foot injury which cut short his Lions\u2019 tour. <\/p>\n

They were then re-united in Leinster\u2019s wins over Ulster and Munster in December, when Joe started and Paddy again finished, so it wasn\u2019t until Leinster\u2019s Champions Cup opener at home to Harlequins that the pair finally started together.<\/p>\n

This happened again away to Leicester, when Joe attributed his Man of the Match display to his younger brother. <\/p>\n

\u201cI loved it. It actually really spurs me on. He\u2019s an absolute beast and I love playing with him, he really motivates me to play well.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"InvestecInvestec Champions Cup Round 3, Aviva Stadium, Dublin 10\/1\/2026 Leinster vs La Rochelle Tempers flare between Joe McCarthy of Leinster and La Rochelle\u2019s Levani Botia Mandatory Credit \u00a9INPHO\/Nick Elliott <\/p>\n

Of course, siblings are understandably more motivated when playing alongside each other. In light of last Saturday\u2019s third start together the older McCarthy reflected: \u201cIt was really cool because we never really got a run of games together up to that because one of us would always be injured or he would be with the 20s or whatever. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think we definitely play better together and preparing for the game together. I really enjoy playing with him. It lifts my game and I think his as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

That said, McCarthy readily sings the praises of Jerry Cahir for his performance off the bench after replacing his younger brother in what proved to be a memorable Champions Cup debut. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s such small margins,\u201d said McCarthy in reflecting on that win. \u201cWay better feeling coming in (on Monday) with a win, it makes everything a lot better\u201d while admitting the result \u201cdoesn\u2019t paper over the cracks\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe definitely weren\u2019t perfect. There were a lot of areas we actually felt we were quite poor in so it\u2019s getting that balance right. I felt we deserved the win, we dug it out and found a way, but trying to fix what we can.\u201d<\/p>\n

Both brothers play on the edge, and Leinster have collectively received 23 penalties in their last two games as well as three yellow cards \u2212 with the older McCarthy receiving two of them. <\/p>\n

McCarthy could feel his yellow card last Saturday for an immaterial offside was quite harsh, although he admits they are avoidable, whereas the breakdown is becoming jungle warfare.<\/p>\n

\"InvestecInvestec Champions Cup Round 3, Aviva Stadium, Dublin 10\/1\/2026 Leinster vs La Rochelle Leinster\u2019s Joe McCarthy leaves the pitch after receiving a yellow card Mandatory Credit \u00a9INPHO\/Nick Elliott <\/p>\n

\u201cEven in the La Rochelle game they were really pushing boundaries and you are wondering: \u2018How are they getting away with that?\u2019 It\u2019s tough for referees. They\u2019re not going to get them all right, but there are some turnovers where I felt \u2018I was good there\u2019 and you didn\u2019t get the call or the ref didn\u2019t see it or the guy comes up the side.<\/p>\n

\u201cI pride myself on the maul and sometimes I feel I\u2019ve come through the middle and I\u2019ve been told to leave it or saying it\u2019s a tackle not a maul. That happens a lot. The last few weeks have been hard because there was a good bit of grey area there. We always say if you paint good pictures around the ruck, make good dominant carries, on the front foot and clearing bodies off their feet, it usually clears it up. Obviously you can\u2019t do it every time.\u201d<\/p>\n

This Saturday\u2019s second successive fixture against Top 14 opposition should prove \u201cideal preparation\u201d for that Six Nations opener, as well as providing something novel.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven when the fixtures came out everyone was really excited about this one. Before the World Cup we played Samoa there. It was a bit of a cagey game, but the atmosphere was class because there were a lot of French fans at that game.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou hear about it being one of the best atmospheres in the Top 14 so we\u2019re really excited about it. We seem to play a lot of the same teams, like a Leicester and a La Rochelle, so a new team like Bayonne is always good.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mindful of Bayonne\u2019s \u201cunbelievable\u201d home form, McCarthy said: \u201cThey can\u2019t qualify now but they are a proud team and they will show up for the fans. One thing we looked at from the La Rochelle game was that every French team likes to offload in contact, they don\u2019t want it to break down. We probably didn\u2019t deal with that so well because maybe in the URC teams are more pragmatic. <\/p>\n

\u201cBayonne have good athletes and they will want to keep the ball alive. They won\u2019t want us to get a ruck set so they will look to play through us and offload. That is very French and obvious to say but it is still very hard to defend when they get it right.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"No sooner have Joe and Paddy McCarthy belatedly been able to put a run of games together than…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":234381,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76],"tags":[56839,18,19,17,47469,12861,132],"class_list":{"0":"post-285719","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-champions-cup","9":"tag-eire","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-joe-mccarthy","13":"tag-leinster-rugby","14":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285719","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=285719"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285719\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/234381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=285719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=285719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=285719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}