Image:Guest suffered a double break to his left arm
Conor O'Shea has spoken of Tom Guest's 'shocking' double break to his arm during Quins' victory over London Irish.
Quins back rower facing surgery after double arm break
Conor O'Shea has spoken of Tom Guest's 'shocking' double break to his left arm during Quins' season-opening victory over London Irish on Saturday.
The 29-24 victory at Twickenham was marred by the injury to the England Saxons back-row forward, who had been handed the No. 8 shirt with Nick Easter on England World Cup duty.
Harlequins director of rugby O'Shea confirmed after the match that the break had been serious but that Guest would need to see a surgeon before much more could be determined.
"He's broken both bones in his lower arm pretty badly," he said. "So we will have to wait for the surgeon to have a look at it. The first opinion is it will need to be plated.
"He's come back after a long period out and I feel for Guesty. It's a shocking thing to happen."
Guest will be replaced by 21-year-old Chris York and O'Shea hopes the youngster can grab hold of the opportunity.
"He's a young guy with a lot of athletic talent," he added. "He's been knocking on the door for a chance and this will be his chance to show what he can do."
Awful
Aside from the injury O'Shea was pleased with his side's opening performance, particularly that of former All Blacks fly-half Nick Evans who booted five penalties and two conversions during the match.
"Nick is exceptional and I thought we got control in a number of phases of the match," O'Shea continued. "But the two tries we conceded were awful. There's plenty to work on but overall I was happy."
London Irish head coach Toby Booth said there were many positives to be taken from the performance of his young side despite the defeat.
"We've spoken a lot about the youngsters and their need to aim up," he said. "And on the whole they aimed up very well. We were very pleased with that
"We worked incredibly hard and the mistakes we made were brought about through inexperience more than anything else.
"The test for this team in this initial period is how quickly it can grow up. Overall the effort and endeavour was fantastic.
"People know we play a certain way and that was evident. We were probably guilty of playing too much in our own half and bringing pressure on ourselves."