Injury forces Lawro out

Liam Lawrence is out of Ireland's squad for the 'Carling Nations Cup' game with Wales with a 'calf problem'.

Although of more concern to us, those non-Irish among the Pompey supporting ranks of course, will be how will this impact on his availability for Doncaster next weekend?

Lawro, who might not have been as influential as he can be - that is not to say he was not important to the draw at the weekend - still ran himself into the ground against Derby to show just how important he has become to Pompey.

Even though Aaron Mokoena has regained the captains armband Lawro looked to be the true leader again at the weekend.

For the injury to be serious enough to rule him out of international duty, should we worry about his availability for Doncaster?

In the past, when players were easily able to 'avoid an international call', I think we could have quite easily have been assured that he would then make a miracle recovery to be fit for the next club game, with countries now able to prevent a player from doing this it is not so easy.

That said, when all is said and done, that game is a friendly so 'fingers crossed' this is just a precautionary measure with no risks being taken with his long-term fitness, for club and country, being taken into account...

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