Munster captain Tadhg Beirne has offered his sympathy to Antoine Dupont following the season-ending knee injury he suffered against Ireland last month.
Dupont sustained a torn anterior cruciate ligament during the Guinness Six Nations meeting of Ireland and France in Dublin when Beirne collided with his leg at a ruck, and is now set for a lengthy period on the sidelines.
The Munster and Ireland second row wasn't penalised during the game by referee Angus Gardner, but France head coach Fabien Galthie reacted furiously, branding it as a "reprehensible" incident, and calling for both Beirne and Andrew Porter to be cited.
However, the Irish pair were vindicated when the citing commissioner ruled they had no case to answer.
In the days that followed, Porter and his wife Elaine were targeted with abuse on social media, some of which referenced his late mother Wendy, as well as his unborn child.
And Beirne says he and his family were also the subject to abusive messages.
"I'm sorry for the fact that did happen to him, you don't like see it happen to any player," the Munster captain said.
"But the backlash myself and Porter and our families got afterward was probably enough punishment for us on its own, to be honest with you."
The second row has insisted Dupont’s injury was an unfortunate accident, and says he has made attempts to contact the France scrum half to offer him his best wishes.
"I reached out to him. I messaged him on Instagram. I tried looking for him after the game as well, but I couldn't get to him, he was obviously with medical teams.
"You know, he has a million followers or something on Instagram, I'm pretty sure he's not going to see a message from me, but look, it's all I could do at the time. I sent my regards through Gregory Alldritt [France vice-captain] as well.
"It's an incident, obviously, where you can slow it down and it can look bad, but it's an incident that wasn't intentional. I never intended to injure him. The last thing I want to do is injure the best player in the world.
"You don't go out there to hurt anyone but it was just unfortunate the way it happened."
The Munster captain was speaking ahead of his side’s Investec Champions Cup meeting with La Rochelle on Saturday (live commentary on RTÉ Radio 1), in what will be a first ever meeting of the teams.
Two-time champions La Rochelle, who are coached by Munster and Ireland great Ronan O’Gara (below), come into the game without a win in eight games, but boast a formidable record at home in the Champions Cup.
When the round of 16 ties were confirmed back in late January, few people gave Munster a chance of inflicting a rare home defeat in this competition for O’Gara’s side.
However, La Rochelle’s form, along with Munster’s impressive attack in last week’s win against Connacht, has tightened those odds.
And Beirne says he and his players will head to France this weekend with nothing to fear.
"It's not going to define our season, like. We still have the league. But how sweet would it be to be staying in this competition for as long as we can, and try to get to a final to give a chance for some silverware? That's our mentality anyway.
"We're probably the underdogs going into this, away from home, but we'll certainly give it a good crack and we're very excited. Behind closed doors, we know we have a good chance of doing it if we put in a complete performance and that's the target.
"There's no point [showing up] in it if you're just gonna bend over and give up, you know? So, for me, it's about believing in what we can do when we're at our best.
"They're going through a rough patch, they've lost a few league games in a row now, but this is a different competition, so it gives them a new opportunity just to go out there and give it a proper crack.
"When you go from one competition to the next, it can give you a little bit of a new lease of life as well, so I'd certainly be expecting that from them.
"I think our defence is going to be the biggest part of Saturday. If we get our defence right and if we can shut them down and not give them easy yards, I think we'll give ourselves a bit of a chance," he added.
Watch Leinster v Harlequins in the Champions Cup on Saturday from 2.15pm on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player. Follow a live blog on rte.ie/sport and the RTÉ News app.
Listen to live commentary of La Rochelle v Munster (5.30pm) and updates from Leinster v Harlequins (3pm) in the Champions Cup on Saturday Sport on RTÉ Radio 1.
