News

Ashley-Cooper hoping to be passed fit

August 04 2008

Australian full-back Adam Ashley-Cooper is hoping he can recover from surgery on a broken hand in time to play against South Africa in the away leg of their Tri-Nations campaign.

Ashley-Cooper was forced from the field in Auckland when he injured his hand tackling All Black second row Ali Williams just before the break.

With a week off this coming week Australia fly out to South Africa next week for back-to-back games against the world champion Springboks, and Ashley-Cooper is confident he will be fit to fly.

"It was in a tackle," Ashley-Cooper told Fox Sports after returning to Sydney.

"I put a high ball up and just chased through. A swinging arm in the tackle. I must have connected with a hard part of Williams' body and seemed to come out with a broken hand.

"It happened just before half-time. As I was running back I had a bit of a feel and it was clicking.

"The contact was a little painful. It settled down, but the clicking didn't seem right so I thought there was something wrong. I asked the doc (Martin Raftery) why it was clicking and he said probably because it's broken. Then the buzzer went and I went off and assessed it."

If Ashley-Cooper is to travel a lot will depend on the success of his surgery, an operation that will place a screw in his hand.

"There is scope to tour South Africa," Ashley-Cooper said.

"If I go into surgery on Monday, there's still three weeks until we play our first game. The doc seems to think there is scope for that second leg.

"That would be four weeks and that would be plenty of time. I'm a quick healer. I haven't been ruled out yet. That's given that surgery goes according to plan.

"It's hard to say when I'll have the surgery because doc is probably on the phone at the moment trying to book in and get it done."

Ashley-Cooper, who has been in outstanding form, scored his team's only try in Saturday's defeat.

"It's always very frustrating to one, be replaced, and two, come off injured," he said.

"I've been very happy with how my performances were going. I suppose to have a loss over there to the All Blacks and they played great footy and supplied pressure and we couldn't do anything about it."