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The 'better watch what I say' Irish update on the injured Arundell
By Liam Heagney
London Irish boss Declan Kidney has confirmed that teenage sensation Henry Arundell is still in with a shout of playing for England next month at Twickenham despite last Friday’s initially serious-looking Gallagher Premiership injury.
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Arundell hobbled off just 19 minutes into the 21-22 defeat for London Irish versus Gloucester after he collided with his teammate Ben Loader. There were concerns he could have damaged ligaments in his right ankle but that grave prognosis wasn’t as bad as originally feared.
Although he was officially withdrawn from the 36-player squad named to assemble in Jersey at the start of this week for a five-day training camp ahead of the four-game Autumn Nations Series, England asked London Irish to allow Arundell to begin his injury rehab with them on the Channel Island.
This was a request that Irish agreed to and DoR Kidney has now provided a lunchtime Tuesday update that suggested the soon-to-be 20-year-old could be fit towards the latter stages of a series that begins on November 6 with England hosting Argentina, a game that will be followed by other matches against Japan (November 12), New Zealand (November 19) and South Africa (November 26).
“He is actually over there with them,” reported Kidney when asked about the injury situation affecting Arundell and his chances of adding to the three caps he won on tour in Australia with England last July.
“Sometimes when you do those press conferences straight after (a game) and you haven’t done your medicals first, we thought it was ligaments but it was just a small bone issue that we hope would clear up in maybe three weeks, so he is over in Jersey with them. England asked if could he do his rehab with them and it is important to work with the national team, so we let him go over there and the medics are keeping close contact. Hopefully, he won’t be out for as long as the crutches made it look like.”
Asked if this three-week timescale would see Arundell become available for the third match against the All Blacks, Kidney cautiously added: “I better watch what I say. He is on somebody else’s watch. In the same way I said it was ligament damage, I wouldn’t take three weeks from a non-doctor here [the DoR himself].
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“He has got an injury that looked like it would have ruled him out of all November, but the medics are hopeful that he might be available for some of it. We don’t have day-to-day contact with him but England will stay in touch and hopefully it will repair itself faster. He has had good healing, as he has shown in the past, and we would be hopeful he would be available for some of November.
“He has shown good resilience with that [previous injury adversity]. Like, when he broke on the scene people were asking me what is he like and it is just his resilience in dealing with things like that that impressed me as much as anything.”
