Northern Edition

Select Edition

Northern Northern
Southern Southern
Global Global
New Zealand New Zealand
France France

The painful Jonny Gray legacy that forced Henry Slade into surgery

(Photo by Dan Mullan/The RFU Collection via Getty Images)

Recuperating England midfielder Henry Slade has revealed that a legacy injury sustained when tackling Jonny Gray in 2018 was the reason for the shoulder surgery that forced him to miss the recent tour to Australia. The Exeter centre has been a mainstay of Eddie Jones’ national team in recent years but he missed out on last month’s Test series victory over the Wallabies due to an operation to remedy a long-existing problem.

ADVERTISEMENT

Keyhole surgery was required to finally repair a posterior labral repair problem that Slade had been suffering from for four years, according to an interview with the seasoned England player published on devonlive.com. “I injured it in 2018,” he revealed.

“I was actually tackling (current Exeter teammate) Jonny Gray when he played for Glasgow – the big lump. It was a long time ago and I have been carrying it for a little while and I just thought this is the best time for me to finally get it sorted.

Video Spacer

Video Spacer

“There is never a good time because the layoff period is fairly decent but I thought enough is enough, let’s get this sorted. I’m really excited now to be in my rehab and getting back on track.

“In terms of recovery time, they tell you it takes about 14-16 weeks. I’m in about week seven or eight now (when speaking last week), so just about the halfway mark and now it is getting more interesting because now we are getting into the movement phase and lifting some more weights,” continued Slade, the 29-year-old who has 48 England caps and has his heart set on making the cut for World Cup 2023.

Related

“I’m midway through the rehab. I’m looking forward to getting back as soon as possible and we will push it as hard as my shoulder allows. I’m hoping to be back in and around the start of the season. We may be a little ambitious to make the first game (against Leicester Tigers on September 10), but that is what I am aiming for, but I certainly hope the first few games to be available.”

ADVERTISEMENT

LIVE

{{item.title}}

Trending on RugbyPass

Comments

0 Comments
Be the first to comment...

Join free and tell us what you really think!

Sign up for free
ADVERTISEMENT

Latest Features

Comments on RugbyPass

J
JW 36 minutes ago
Why England's defence of the realm has crumbled without Felix Jones

This piece is nothing more than the result of revisionist fancy of Northern Hemisphere rugby fans. Seeing what they want to see, helped but some surprisingly good results and a desire to get excited about doing something well.


I went back through the 6N highlights and sure enough in every English win I remembered seeing these exact holes on the inside, that are supposedly the fallout out of a Felix Jones system breaking down in the hands of some replacement. Every time the commentators mentioned England being targeted up the seam/around the ruck or whatever. Each game had a try scored on the inside of the blitz, no doubt it was a theme throughout all of their games. Will Jordan specifically says that Holland had design that move to target space he saw during their home series win.


Well I'm here to tell you they were the same holes in a Felix Jones system being built as well. This woe is now sentiment has got to stop. The game is on a high, these games have been fantastic! It is Englands attack that has seen their stocks increase this year, and no doubt that is what SB told him was the teams priority. Or it's simply science, with Englands elite players having worked towards a new player welfare and management system, as part of new partnership with the ERU, that's dictating what the players can and can't put their bodies through.


The only bit of truth in this article is that Felix is not there to work on fixing his defence. England threw away another good chance of winning in the weekend when they froze all enterprise under pressure when no longer playing attacking footy for the second half. That mindset helped (or not helped if you like) of course by all this knee jerk, red brained criticism.

31 Go to comments
LONG READ
LONG READ 'Steve Borthwick hung his troops out to dry - he should take some blame' 'Steve Borthwick hung his troops out to dry - he should take some blame'
Search