Marie-Eve Brindamour-Carignan has seen her dreams of a first
Women's Rugby World Cup appearance ended after the second row
failed to recover from a herniated disc in time to get medical
clearance to fly to the UK with the rest of the Canadian squad on
Tuesday.
To make matters worse, the 28-year-old does not know how she
suffered the herniated disc in the first place and is frustrated
that three years of hard work building up to the sixth edition of
the Women's Rugby World Cup has now proved in vain with Ashley
MacDonald taking her place.
"I don't know, actually, [how I injured myself],
which adds to the frustration of all this,"
Brindamour-Carignan told Rugby Canada's website.
"I started having symptoms after the last Can-Am game
[in June], but I didn't think much of it. After a week I came
back from camping, I started getting numbness and could hardly
move, that's when I knew something was obviously not right.
"Obviously [when I got the news] I started crying. It
was a mix of sadness, frustration, deception. I couldn't
believe it. I was a bit mad too, and you wonder 'why me'
and 'why now'? Why not at the World Cup or after a World
Cup? It could have been any other time but now ... why a month
before the World Cup.
"I thought I would still be ok, so when I found out for
sure, that was reality. I know there's more to life than rugby,
and I do want to have a career and I want to play with my children
later, so I understand, but it's still really hard.
"Injuries make you question everything. You start to
doubt a little. The last three years of my life have been dedicated
to rugby, especially the past year. It was all for this one big
event which was supposed to be a culmination of everything, but now
I can't go."
Canada, without Brindamour-Carignan in their ranks, will get
Women's Rugby World Cup 2010 underway against Scotland at
Surrey Sports Park in Guildford on Friday, 20 August, before
tackling Sweden four days later and France in their Pool C decider
on 28 August.
Brindamour-Carignan has this advice for the Canada
squad: "Go out there and give it their all, I guess, because
you never know when your last game will be. I think we can win it,
and everyone has to want to and to give everything ... we can
definitely win the World Cup so go for it."
