Byline: BILLY RUBIN
BRIAN O'DRISCOLL was last night able to watch a rerun of the punch thatalmost knocked out his chance of playing in the World Cup.
Video footage emerged of the assault by the New Zealander Mike Tewhata just aday after O'Driscoll wrote in a French magazine that he wanted to watch areplay of Concord Replica Watches the incident in last Thursday's explosive game in Bayonne.
'I am going to watch the video to understand what happened,' he wrote in theFrench magazine Rugby Hebdo. 'I didn't see where the punch came from. I was notexpecting that at all.' The footage backs up O'Driscoll's version of eventsthat he was only trying to help Marcus Horan get free from a French player. Inthe clip, O'Driscoll is clearly seen tugging his team-mate away from a meleewhen Tewhata rushes in and hits him.
'I didn't come to take part in the bust-up but to separate two guys that werefighting. One lad from Bayonne was bust strangling Marcus Horan with his armand I just wanted to free my team-mate's head.
'But I am not going to make a meal of it. I do not feel excessive anger towardsthe player who hit me or towards Bayonne.' Whether he will change his viewafter seeing the footage remains to be seen. The French authorities could alsotake further action against the player who they have already suspended.
'At times Bayonne looked less interested in the idea of playing rugby than inthe desire to target certain individuals,' he wrote. 'As for Richard Dourthe'sremarks about me before the match. I don't know in which context he made themor in what tone.
I'll leave him the benefit of the doubt.
If it was humour, it wasn't the funniest thing I have ever heard.' O'Driscolldefended coach Eddie O'Sullivan's decision to play the game in the middle ofwhat was always going to be the hostile heartland of French rugby.
'Should we have played the game?
There is always a risk, but you couldn't really foresee that. We expected ahard, committed match and that was the case most of the time.
'Bayonne did not make the job easy for us and even shook us up at times.
Committed rugby is being hard in the tackle and the rucks, it is not slippingin sly punches that have no point.
Even at 45 points, the isolated incidents continued. If Bayonne had thoughtmore bout playing rugby, as they sometimes did, perhaps they could have donebetter.
Replica Jimmy Choo'Perhaps it was their tactics to make us lose our heads. In any case, even ifit was their first match of the season, at home against a national team, theydid not need that to prove to all the people coming to the stadium they couldbe equal to it.
FRANCE'S World Cup hopes took a blow when its most experienced prop SylvainMarconnet was ruled out because of a lingering shin injury on Monday.
Marconnet - who has been capped 71 times - sustained a double shin fracturewhen he fell off a ski lift in March and requires new surgery. He will now bereplaced by Nicolas Mas.
Marconnet's surgeon, Dr. Philippe Landreau, ruled that a new operation wasneeded on the 31-year-old after viewing X-ray and MRI results from last week,France manager Jo Maso said in a statement.