{"id":590605,"date":"2025-11-24T10:41:32","date_gmt":"2025-11-24T10:41:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/590605\/"},"modified":"2025-11-24T10:41:32","modified_gmt":"2025-11-24T10:41:32","slug":"irelands-boks-defeat-compounded-by-potential-six-nations-setback","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/590605\/","title":{"rendered":"Ireland’s Boks defeat compounded by potential Six Nations setback"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Ireland<\/a> forward Ryan Baird<\/a> is a potential injury doubt for the 2026 Six Nations<\/a> after suffering a suspected broken leg during Saturday\u2019s 24-13 loss to South Africa.<\/p>\n

The 26-year-old initially attempted to play through the pain before being replaced by Leinster<\/a> team-mate Jack Conan<\/a> with 20 minutes remaining.<\/p>\n

Following the retirement of former captain Peter O\u2019Mahony, Baird has started his country\u2019s last six Test matches at blindside flanker, having won 20 of his previous 27 caps as a replacement.<\/p>\n

Ireland begin the Six Nations on Thursday, February 5 with a trip to holders France.<\/p>\n

Head coach Andy Farrell said: \u201cRyan Baird, I believe, has fractured his tibia.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe tried to carry on within all that as well, so there was some courage being shown there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ireland are also awaiting a fitness update on Mack Hansen.<\/p>\n

The Connacht<\/a> back, 27, suffered a recurrence of the foot issue which caused him to miss the defeat to New Zealand<\/a> and victory over Japan<\/a> earlier this month.<\/p>\n

\"Team Set Plays \"Team <\/p>\n

50%<\/p>\n

Restarts Received Win %<\/p>\n

83%<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Farrell has plenty to ponder following a bruising outing against the Springboks but insists he has no concerns about Ireland\u2019s scrum.<\/p>\n

South Africa<\/a> outmuscled the hosts en route to a first Dublin win since 2012, with the majority of their 12 scrums forcing penalties.<\/p>\n

Ill-disciplined Ireland conceded 18 penalties across a frenetic encounter during which James Ryan<\/a> was sent off and Sam Prendergast<\/a>, Jack Crowley<\/a>, Andrew Porter<\/a> and Paddy McCarthy<\/a> were sin-binned.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you look at our scrum over the last five or six years, it\u2019s been world-class at times,\u201d said Farrell.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a (British and Irish) Lions<\/a> front row in there (Andrew Porter, Dan Sheehan<\/a> and Tadhg Furlong), so that\u2019s not been an issue for us at all.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been a strength for us and we pride ourselves on that. Sometimes they (South Africa) catch you.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ve caught plenty other teams and the momentum, they kept on going for the blood, didn\u2019t they?\u201d<\/p>\n

Ireland\u2019s ambitions of building on wins over Japan and Australia<\/a> were dealt a major blow when lock Ryan was dismissed in the 20th minute for an illegal clearout on world player of the year Malcolm Marx.<\/p>\n

With South Africa leading 5-0, the infringement caused a Tadhg Beirne<\/a> try to be disallowed before the home team had spells playing with 13 and 12 men due to the series of yellow cards.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s gutted, he\u2019s upset, he apologised to the group,\u201d Farrell said of Ryan.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was other things that went on within the game as well that we need to address. It\u2019s not just one man\u2019s doing by far. We\u2019re all in this together.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ireland forward Ryan Baird is a potential injury doubt for the 2026 Six Nations after suffering a suspected…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":590606,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4102],"tags":[4151,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-590605","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-rugby","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590605","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=590605"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590605\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/590606"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=590605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=590605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=590605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}