Rugby-Welsh greats blame coach for Halfpenny injury

Sept 8 (Reuters) - Wales coach Warren Gatland and the Welsh management have come under fire after talismanic fullback Leigh Halfpenny was ruled out of the Rugby World Cup with a knee injury. Part of a fearsome Welsh backline that won back-to-back Six Nations titles in 2012 and 2013, British and Irish Lion Halfpenny is facing six months out after rupturing knee ligaments in the 23-19 victory over Italy at the Millennium Stadium on Saturday. Gatland is being blamed for taking what some are calling an unnecessary risk by playing Halfpenny in the Italy game. "I looked at Leigh Halfpenny in the warm-up and he was strapped up already," former Welsh winger Shane Williams told reporters. "He was walking around gingerly in training. If you look at the way he went down with the injury, there was no contact -- he just slipped and his knee seemed to buckle under him," he added. "That says to me that he wasn't ready. You kind of thought, 'Do we need this guy on the field? Let's wrap him in cotton wool and roll him out when we need him.' Wales is in mourning." Williams underlined Halfpenny's value to the Welsh. "It's not only the goalkicking you get from him," he said. "He's the safest full back in the world and defensively the best." Fellow Wales great JJ Williams also added his voice to the debate. "The bandaging on his leg was quite enormous. It was a bad decision to play him," he told BBC Wales "It was the ideal chance to give (Matthew) Morgan a run-out at fullback. They are paying the penalty. Now we've got a deep problem of who is going to replace him." However, Sir Clive Woodward, coach of England's 2003 World Cup-winning side, weighed in on the side of Gatland. "Hindsight is a great strength. He's injured and that's it... That's the World Cup. It's about 31 players," Woodward said. (Reporting by Simon Jennings in Bengaluru)