{"id":394564,"date":"2026-03-20T06:53:18","date_gmt":"2026-03-20T06:53:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/394564\/"},"modified":"2026-03-20T06:53:18","modified_gmt":"2026-03-20T06:53:18","slug":"rob-baloucoune-out-for-three-months-due-to-elbow-operation-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/394564\/","title":{"rendered":"Rob Baloucoune out for three months due to elbow operation \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/robert-baloucoune\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/robert-baloucoune\/\">Rob Baloucoune<\/a> will undergo surgery on an elbow injury sustained while trying to make a tackle in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/sport\/rugby\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/sport\/rugby\/\">Ireland<\/a>\u2019s Triple Crown-winning victory over Scotland in the Aviva Stadium last weekend.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/ulster-rugby\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/ulster-rugby\/\">Ulster<\/a> confirmed the 28-year-old right wing will be sidelined for 12 weeks and is, therefore, likely to miss the remainder of the province\u2019s season. The URC Grand Final takes place on June 20th, so he\u2019d have an outside chance of making that should Richie Murphy\u2019s charges qualify.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">A more realistic target for the Enniskillen man would be to make Ireland\u2019s three matches in the Nations Championship during the summer, when they take on Australia, Japan and New Zealand. The first of those matches is against the Wallabies in Sydney on July 4th.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The Ulster statement read: \u201cUlster Rugby can confirm that Rob Baloucoune sustained an elbow injury in Ireland\u2019s win over Scotland last weekend. He will undergo surgery and is expected to be sidelined for approximately three months. Wishing you a speedy recovery, Rob.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The player <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/sport\/rugby\/2026\/03\/17\/robert-baloucounes-rising-player-award-at-28-proves-its-never-too-late\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/sport\/rugby\/2026\/03\/17\/robert-baloucounes-rising-player-award-at-28-proves-its-never-too-late\/\">won an award<\/a> as Rising Player of the Six Nations after excelling in the tournament. Baloucoune missed out on Ireland\u2019s defeat to France in Paris before being chosen by Andy Farrell to start all four tournament victories on the right wing. He scored tries against Italy, England and Scotland. Across all matches this season he has a strike rate of 11 tries in 12 games.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">His career has been pockmarked by injuries including hamstring issues that have stalled his progress despite his undoubted talent. Baloucoune scored a try on his Ireland debut against the USA in 2021 but had amassed just three more caps before making his first Six Nations start in the tournament that\u2019s just finished. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The former Ireland Sevens international, who has also played for Emerging Ireland and the Ireland XV, has crossed for five tries in his eight senior caps. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rob Baloucoune will undergo surgery on an elbow injury sustained while trying to make a tackle in Ireland\u2019s&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":394565,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76],"tags":[18,19,17,34132,159480,96426,132,23200],"class_list":{"0":"post-394564","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-eire","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-ireland-rugby","12":"tag-robert-baloucoune","13":"tag-six-nations","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-ulster-rugby"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116260189169046498","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394564","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=394564"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394564\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/394565"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=394564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=394564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=394564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}