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'Doesn't look good': Edinburgh deliver Freddy Douglas injury update
By Bryn Palmer
Edinburgh will have to do without new Scotland cap Freddy Douglas for at least the next month after the flanker suffered an ankle injury on his first senior start for the club.
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The 19-year-old openside, who made his Test debut last month against Portugal before playing a first-team game for the capital outfit, made his bow off the bench in Edinburgh’s URC win over Benetton on November 30 and was then picked to start their European Challenge Cup opener at Gloucester last Friday.
But Douglas rolled his ankle in the opening 10 minutes at Kingsholm and despite playing on after treatment, was forced to come off at the end of the opening quarter.
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Head coach Sean Everitt reported on Monday that while they are still waiting on the results of an MRI scan, “it doesn’t look good for him at this stage”.
“He’ll be out for a minimum of four weeks, minimum,” Everitt said. “But when we get the results of the MRI, we’ll be clearer on that.”
Douglas, who last week committed his future to the club despite interest from Bristol Bears, is therefore likely to miss not only Friday’s Challenge Cup visit of French side Bayonne, but both URC festive derbies against Glasgow and potentially Edinburgh’s remaining European pool games in January.
Everitt is also waiting on scan results for co-captain Ben Vellacott after the scrum-half was forced to withdraw from the starting side to face Gloucester after feeling his ankle in the warm-up.
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“It doesn’t seem as bad as Freddie, but we’ll have those results this evening and then we’ll have a clear idea,” said the head coach, who is optimistic Vellacott may be fit enough to participate in the double-header against Glasgow.
With Douglas sidelined and Ben Muncaster, who has impressed in the No.7 jersey this season, also still out with illness this week, Everitt might have been tempted to recall British and Irish Lions openside Hamish Watson to frontline action.
But with another Scotland back-rower, Luke Crosbie, available again and Tom Dodd impressing on his first start of the season against Gloucester, it appears Watson will again be left kicking his heels on Friday.
“He’s not out of favour,” Everitt insisted. “It’s important for us in that position where we’ve got a wealth of riches at the moment to give everyone an opportunity.
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“We’ve got Luke Crosbie coming back from injury so he would come into contention for selection and we were happy with what Tom [Dodd] did on the weekend, and Tom’s only had one shot. So, you know, we could look forward to seeing Tom again this weekend.”
Everitt will also be able to call on seven returning Scotland internationals – Darcy Graham, Duhan van der Merwe, Ali Price, Pierre Schoeman, Ewan Ashman, Grant Gilchrist and Jamie Ritchie – after they were rested against Gloucester.
There was also a slightly more upbeat bulletin on Argentine full-back Emiliano Boffelli, who has started running again after undergoing back surgery on a recurring issue that has dogged him over the past year.
In early October, Everitt said the Pumas goalkicker was looking at “probably four to five months” out of the game but on Monday he stressed Boffelli has “not been written off for the season at this stage”.
“He’s making his way back onto the field,” Everitt reported. “He started running last week. We’re not sure what his return date will be. It will be how he progresses after that surgery. He had a backlash on that previously, so we’re certainly going to be cautious on his return.”
With Scotland full-back Harry Paterson also ruled out until the new year, Everitt will hope nothing befalls Wes Goosen – who has started all eight games this season, including one on the right wing – over the coming weeks, even if Nathan Sweeney, a young full-back beset by injury woes over the last couple of seasons, made his comeback against Gloucester.
“The depth in the back three has always been a challenge since I’ve been here,” he noted. “We haven’t been very lucky with regards to injuries in that position. Sometimes that’s the way rugby works. But coming into the new year, we’ll have Harry back and we got Nathan back on the field last week. It’s good he got through 80 minutes of rugby.”
Meanwhile, Everitt has addressed a RugbyPass report that hooker Dave Cherry could be on his way out of the club at the end of the season, with Leicester believed to be interested in taking him south.
The 33-year-old has slipped out of Scotland contention since being forced to return home from last year’s World Cup after suffering a concussion falling down stairs at the team’s hotel on a day off.
“David’s contract is up,” Everitt confirmed, but insisted he has not told Cherry his services are no longer wanted. “No negotiations have taken place at this stage. I did chat to Dave about that article this morning. He laughed it off.
“He said if he were to move anywhere, he would have those discussions with us. Likewise, if we didn’t want to contract Dave, we would have those discussions with him. So that was all new to us yesterday.”
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