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'Bone actually came out': Ugly injury makes Lawes an England doubt
By Kim Ekin
Courtney Lawes is potentially facing a race to be fit in time for this July’s England tour of Australia after Northampton shed light on the ugly injury the Guinness Six Nations captain suffered during last Saturday night’s defeat for the Saints at Gloucester. Northampton lost out 31-21 at Kingsholm in their all-English round-of-16 European Challenge Cup clash, a setback compounded by the loss of Lawes after just 15 minutes.
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The commentary in the aftermath of the game from a Saints perspective focused more on the red carding of recent Wales skipper Dan Biggar, but it has now emerged that their England skipper suffered a horrible-sounding dislocated thumb injury and there is no definitive timeline yet for his recovery.
“Courtney had a compound dislocation of his thumb,” explained Chris Boyd at the Northampton media briefing ahead of this Saturday’s Gallagher Premiership match against Bath. “It was quite nasty because the bone actually came out.
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“But it’s been popped back in, it’s been irrigated and sewn back up again. He has still got some medical decisions to be made around the skeletal function of the thumb and the muscle and ligament situation. All I can really say until we get a clearer medical view is that he won’t play on Saturday.
“He came into training on Tuesday afternoon and he was pretty upbeat. He was disappointed and he didn’t want to look at it because he knew it was going to be a bit challenging, but he is as good as can be. He certainly needs specialist consultation to make a decision on what is the best course of action for him going forward. The hand specialist will come back and say ‘x, y or z’ and whatever he says will happen.”
Lawes captained England twice in the Autumn Nations Series when Owen Farrell was unavailable but he missed the start of the recent Guinness Six Nations with a concussion before returning for the final three matches, skippering his country against Wales, Ireland and France.
With Northampton still in the hunt for a Premiership semi-final place, they will hope that the 33-year-old will be available for the club season run-in in June just weeks before England begin their three-Test tour against the Wallabies on July 2 in Perth.
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I feel terrible for Lawes but it's not bad news for England.
We're over reliant on Lawes at 6. We know what he can do, he's not young and we need to have cover with international experience.
That doesn't mean playing two 7s, if the intention is to play with a big ball carrying, line out option no 6 then look at alternatives who offer that. Both Dombradt and Simmonds play club level with big 6s, so it makes sense in terms of balance.
Give them time to grow into the shirt, let Lawes have an off season and rest. Hopefully he's fit and raring for the world cup, but injury strikes, we've got someone with decent experience to step in who offers similar attributes.
I like Ludlum and I think Ted Hill would be in the squad, he's just playing for an unfashionable team. 6ft 5in about the same size as Lawes and great either side of the ball. Last year he was captain when he as 22 years old, so attitude it good.
If Eddie prefers other options then fine, but at least play like-for-like (as much as you can) so you keep the balance of the team, moving into the world cup.
Sounds a nasty one for Lawes hope he recovers soon, but we could use this opportunity to find his understudy.