Lawes losing race to be fit for England
COURTNEY Lawes appears destined to miss England’s autumn series opener against South Africa because of a back problem.
Lawes left the squad’s Portugal training camp on Friday to return home in order to receive specialist treatment on an injury that initially flared up before Northampton’s defeat by Leicester on October 6.
The British and Irish Lions lock pulled out of the game during the warm-up after suffering a back spasm that Saints director of rugby Chris Boyd revealed was the result of sleeping in a hotel bed that was too small for his 6ft 7in frame.
He was due to return to Vilamoura last night but given that he will not be able to train fully until Thursday - on the morning the team is announced - his chances of being involved have faded.
“Courtney had a walk through on Wednesday and realised it wasn’t right. Our medical team got on to it straight away,” England head coach Eddie Jones said.
“He was investigated here, we couldn’t get the required treatment here so had to send him back.
“At the moment it seems like it’s had the required effect and we’ll just wait and see how he comes in. He’s had the injury for a while. He missed two games for Northampton. He came back and played a game but it hasn’t really rectified itself.
“We’re hopeful he’ll do some light training on Tuesday. Maybe he’ll do some full training on Thursday and we’ll make an assessment on whether he’s right to go.
“He’s a 60-capper, a Lions player, great ball carrier, a good defender. A big loss, so we’ve just got to pick up the slack.”
If Lawes if ruled out as expected, Saracens pair Maro Itoje and George Kruis are set to form the second row.
Manu Tuilagi is poised to win his first cap for four years after impressing during training since his arrival in camp on Wednesday, placing further distance between him and the succession of long-term injuries that have interrupted his Test career.
“Manu has looked really good,” Jones said. “He obviously brings something different and he’s pushing hard for a spot in the 23.” ROSS Neal could so easily have been resting his 6ft 5in frame on a sun lounger during a week off.
Instead, the towering centre was soaked to the core at Kingsholm after making his Wasps debut in the Premiership Rugby Cup opener against Gloucester.
The former London Scottish back was the only one of five players Wasps signed from Championship clubs who hadn’t made a match-day 23 following a gruelling block of Premiership and European games.
Rather than join the senior playing squad in taking a few days off, Neal joined Jon Pendlebury and the Academy squad to prepare for the knockout cup encounter.
“I’d played 27 games last season and this year I’d only played two 40s in preseason and an A-League game,” said the 22-year-old.
“There was an opportunity for a week off but I requested if I could get this one in and they said yes that’s fine.
“It was good to get an 80 in, to give me a bit more momentum for next week, hopefully if I play again, and put in a good performance. You never want to go rusty. “Any chance I get to play I might as well take it.”
He added: “You only get so much from training and I am bigger bloke so my game is pretty physical, so if I am not playing I am not improving much.”
The centre played the full 80 minutes as Wasps suffered a 31-7 defeat in front of a large home crowd.
With Owain James topping the Wasps appearance list with just six, Neal believes the partisan home support may have played a part in the visitors’ shaky start at Kingsholm. “There were more than 12,000 in the stadium, more than they had for Castres last week,” said Neal, who also had a spell at London Irish.
“I think a few of the boys in the first half shrunk to it and let things happen.
“Whereas in the second half we changed the mindset and were a bit more direct in terms of forcing them to play and bringing in line speed.
“I think it was the 10-minute period when we lost Will Porter they scored 19 points.
“It’s hard to break that down and think what went wrong. I think our mindset was, ‘they’re going to attack and we’re just going to deal with what they bring,’ instead of making them deal with our defence. “We had a lot of possession in their half, a lot of territory, on the line it wasn’t easy for them to score, they weren’t getting easy tries outside of that 10-minute period when Porter was off.” Wasps, trailing by 31 points, managed to score their only points of the game with the clock in the red as teenage replacement hooker Alfie Barbeary drove over from a rolling maul for a try that was converted by Sunny Jardine. “It was nice to get something,” said
You only get so much from training and I am a bigger bloke so if I am not playing I am not improving much.