Wales lose Leigh Halfpenny for World Cup

The Wales and Lions full-back suffered a serious knee injury and was stretchered off during Saturday's 23-19 defeat of Italy.

The WRU confimed on Monday that Halfpenny has an ACL injury and will definitely miss the tournament, though further assessments will be needed to see how long he will be out for.

Given the seriousness if ACL surgery is required, however, Halfpenny's chances of playing in next year's Six Nations could also be affected. Indeed, an unsourced report in French newspaper L'Equipe claims that the WRU have told Halfpenny's club side Toulon that the player will be out for at least six months and will not be available until March.

The news is a horrendous blow to Wales: Halfpenny has been one of their key men for several years, and was named Player of the Series during the 2013 Lions Tour to Australia.

Scrum-half Rhys Webb was also injured, though there is as yet no news about how bad his ankle ligament injury is.

Wales, drawn in the toughest of the four groups alongside England and Australia, open their World Cup campaign against Uruguay in Cardiff on Sept. 20.

Halfpenny, who has amassed 508 points in 62 tests for Wales and is renowned for his accuracy at goal, as well as being a fearless tackler and fine counter-attacker, pulled up holding his knee and was carried off late on against Italy in Cardiff.

Team-mate Dan Biggar - who is set to take over goalkicking duties - described the situation as "disastrous", while there has been a chorus of recriminations aimed at coach Warren Gatland.

Retired Wales legend Shane Williams is among those who have criticised Gatland for risking Halfpenny in a warm-up fixture so close to the tournament's start.

Another Wales stalwart, Jamie Roberts, defended his coach's decision, even though he knows that they could suffer as a consequence.

"It's a blow, there's no doubting that," said Roberts, Wales' leading centre and a qualified doctor.

"They're two quality players, two first-team players. It's a huge blow. The qualities of both of them shouldn't be under-estimated. They're two quality lads who bring a lot to the team and the squad environment. The timing of this one is desperately unfortunate.

"They were quite nasty. They looked in a lot of pain.

"[They are] two wonderful players, first-team players, who've been instrumental in our success in the past few years. It's difficult. It'll test our strength in depth, but this is why Warren has bred strength in depth in the past few years. We have to be ready for moments like this.

"Warm-up games are important, for the lads to get up to match fitness. These injuries can happen in training, and can happen in games. Hindsight's a wonderful thing. If we beat Italy by 60 points at the weekend with a clean bill of health it's a great exercise, so what can you say? It's very easy to make comments like [Williams'] after.

"The changing room was a quiet place, first of all because of the performance. Yes, we did get some things right, but there were a lot of things that didn't go as well as we'd hoped. And secondly the injuries, because we're all quite close, seeing good mates get injured is never nice."

The talented James Hook is in contention to fill Halfpenny's boots, while scrum-half Mike Phillips, a surprise exclusion from Gatland's 31-man squad, will likely be brought in should Webb be ruled out.

"Mike handled his original omission from the 31-man squad very well," Roberts said. "He said publicly he loves playing for Wales and he'll do anything to play for Wales again. If he's called upon, he'll do a stellar job, there's no doubt about that.

"[Hook's a] quality player, quality bloke, great rugby man. He would have been gutted to miss out."

This is dreadful news for a team that had high hopes of going one or two better than their semi-final appearance in New Zealand four years ago. Some have suggested that Webb's absence will be more of a blow than Halfpenny's, and while Webb is undoubtedly a key man Halfpenny is the bigger loss. He is a proven game-closer in high-pressure situations, something which simply can't be said of any of the men who might fill his boots.