Wales are considering making a complaint against England hooker Tom Wood as celebrations over their historic win over England were tempered by a rising injury toll.
At least two further replacements could be required with doubts Scott Williams (knee) and Hallam Amos (shoulder) still to be cleared to continue in the tournament after being seriously hurt in Saturday’s 28-25 victory at Twickenham.
Liam Williams was stretchered from the ground after he suffered a blow to the head when he appeared to be kicked by Wood.
World Rugby regulations state a citing complaint must be made within 36 hours of the match ending, which means that 10am local time (1900 AEST) Monday is the deadline for disciplinary action to be taken.
“There was definitely contact between part of Tom Woods’ body and Liam’s head,” assistant coach Shaun Edwards said.
“It’s something we’re going to look at. Obviously, as regards citing … I think we’ll make a comment on that later on but it’s clearly obvious there was some contact with the head.
“The (citing) decision will be made by our manager. We did lose one of our best players and in the position that we’re in, we’re quite short (on numbers), so we’ll just look at that later and make a decision.”
Wales lost fullback Leigh Halfpenny and scrum-half Rhys Webb to injury before the World Cup started, centre Cory Allen was sidelined after their opening 54-9 win over Uruguay while Jonathan Davies was ruled out earlier this year after suffering a serious injury playing for his French club Clermont.
Edwards said if further replacements are required the stocks in their original broader training squad are nearing depletion.
“There’s definitely potential we could lose more, there’s no doubt about that. But, as I’ve said, we’ll just have to show the resilience that we’ve shown so far in the competition, dust ourselves off and get on with it,” he said with serious doubts about Amos and Scott Williams.
“Definitely they’re the ones who are the biggest concern.
“We’ll be looking first at the original squad but we’re obviously in a situation now where we might have to spread our wings a little further.
“Everybody’s in our thoughts. We’ve had an incredibly bad run with injuries there’s no doubt about that.”
Wood went on to Twitter to apologise to Williams but even if his action is not deemed deliberate, his action could be ruled to be reckless.
In his Twitter message, Wood said: “@SanjayWills really relieved to hear ur back on ur feet ok mate.Horrible to see u stretchered off because of me.Hope u hav a speedy recovery.”
