Mixed fortunes for Immanuel Feyi-Waboso and Dafydd Jenkins at Exeter

Immanuel Feyi-Waboso has been ruled out of Exeter Chiefs’ final game of the season against Sale Sharks, but he is set to be fit for England’s summer Test matches against Argentina and the USA in July.

Feyi-Waboso is one of the players with an Enhanced Elite Player Squad contract, having scored a try in each of England’s three tour matches last summer in Japan and New Zealand.

But the wing hasn’t played since damaging his shoulder against Sale Sharks before Christmas and has been battling to be fit to face to play again in the Gallagher Premiership this season after an operation was delayed.

And even though he is back in training, he has run out of time to start contact work, which he needed to do before being considered for selection by Chiefs boss Rob Baxter.

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Gallagher Premiership

Exeter Chiefs

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Sale

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“He is not quite ready; he has not done any level of contact. He is running around on the field but has done zero contact. I don’t think it will have an effect on England because he is at that end stage.

“He has got some targets to hit on strength goals and return to play targets. If he hits those, he will start his return to contact training over the next week or so.

“England’s next game isn’t for a few weeks if his rehab continues as it is now with him hitting targets and markers and he gets into contact and falling. The time isn’t impossible for him to be involved with England,” said Baxter.

Meanwhile, another Chiefs international, Dafydd Jenkins, will miss Wales’s tour of Japan this summer because he has a date with the surgeon’s knife later this week to sort out a back injury to get him ready for the start of next season.

“He’s having surgery on a back issue; he’s going to have that this week, and so he’ll be out for a period. It wasn’t an operation he actually desperately had to have now, but it’s one that he’s needed to have.

“He’s felt the degree it needed doing now rather than leaving. So it’s one of those decisions that Daf, the WRU and ourselves just sat down and decided, let’s get this done now,” added Baxter.