Scotland star out of World Cup after suffering freak accident in team hotel

14 September 2023 , 11:43

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Dave Cherry has been ruled out of the remainder of the World Cup

Scotland's Dave Cherry is out of the Rugby World Cup with concussion after he slipped on some hotel stairs.

The incident occurred during one of the team's days off with the squad being given some time off due to them having no game this weekend. Cherry has suffered a blow to the head and will no longer take part in Scotland's campaign

The 32-year-old will be replaced by his Edinburgh team-mate Stuart McInally, who had been on standby after Ewan Ashman sustained a concussion of his own. Ashman is expected to return for Scotland's next match against Tonga but Cherry's unfortunate blow has opened the door for McInally.

Cherry said: "I'm hugely disappointed to be leaving the squad with concussion. I've loved my time in camp over the summer and gaining my first World Cup cap on Sunday against South Africa. I want to wish the team all the best for the remainder of the competition."

Cherry came on as a 55th minute replacement in Scotland's opening weekend loss to South Africa, but those proved to be the only 25 minutes he played in France. McInally was part of the squad that failed to make it out of the pool stages four years ago in Japan.

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The Scots have only made it out of the pool stages in one of the last three World Cups, losing to Australia in the last eight back in 2015. Their loss to champions South Africa means they realistically cannot lose another game with a clash against No 1 ranked Ireland to come.

Stuart McInally has been called up as a replacement

Gregor Townsend's side will face Tonga a week on Sunday in Nice. They then take on Romania before a clash against Ireland, which could prove pivotal to their chances of progressing. Fly-half Finn Russell admits the group knew they could face a scenario where they'd lost the first game and had to look at winning the next three.

“This was potentially the situation we were going to be in after the first game,” he said. “Ideally it wouldn’t have been, but now we’re in this situation we need to pick ourselves back up, we need to get going. We’ve got Tonga then Romania so we need to go into these games as best prepared as we can and looking to play as best we can."

He went on to say: “The next few days we’ll get away from rugby, refresh ourselves and come back on Thursday and start preparing for Tonga. That’s a massive game for us. We’ve got everything to play for now and to an extent nothing to lose. As tough as it is to take, in sport you have to bounce back as quick as you can and I think the boys will do that.”

Samuel Meade