Ankle injury sidelines Beale
Sun, 01 Jun 2008 11:27
Emerging flyhalf Kurtley Beale is facing four to six weeks on the sidelines 'at best' after injuring his ankle in the second half of his side's narrow loss to the Crusaders on Saturday.
Beale, a strong contender for the 30-man-Wallabies squad to be announced in Sydney on Monday, will instead undergo scans to determine the extent of the damage to the ligaments in his right ankle.
While the setback is a dent to Beale's immediate hopes of winning his first Test cap, the injury will also see him miss the inaugural IRB Junior World Championship to be staged in Wales this month.
"Pretty disappointed and pretty emotional about it," a subdued Beale said at the Waratahs' public reception at the Sydney Football Stadium on Sunday.
Beale relived the incident which ended his night in the 57th minute.
"I went in to (a ruck) clean out and I just got ambushed by three of their big men and the ankle got caught, my shoe got caught and I was just twisted awkwardly," Beale recalled.
"A lot of weight with those big boys just fell on me - it was pretty unfortunate I was in that position but that's rugby I guess".
Asked if he immediately feared the worst Beale said: "Well it was very painful when I did it, I heard a few crunching noises down in the ankle and I knew when I did it that it just didn't feel right".
Beale, who was forced to watch his opposite number Dan Carter kick the Crusaders to an eight-point victory, was left to rue what could have been.
"I thought we had them in the next 20-25 minutes of the game," Beale lamented.
"We knew we had to grind it (out), we did all the hard work leading up and I knew things started to open up".
"It was pretty unfortunate - as I was sitting on the sideline you could definitely see opportunities, you know, you could see their big guys sitting out on the wing".
"Pity that the ankle struck and I just keep saying that's rugby and that's life".
