Hislop’s knee injury ‘long-term’

Edinburgh prop Robin Hislop faces a lengthy spell on the sidelines as a result of the knee injury he sustained in Saturday night’s Challenge Cup defeat by Gloucester.

Wes Goosen and Mark Bennett,whoinjuredaquadanda knee respectively in the 21-20 loss, have also been ruled out of Friday night’s pool decider at Scarlets, but head coach Sean Everitt is more hopeful about their chances of a reasonably quick return.

“Robin Hislop’s knee injury definitely looks like a longterm one, but we haven’t had the results back from his MRI yet,”hesaidonmondau.“wes and Mark had their MRIS this morning: they won’t be available [on Friday], but we still don’t know the extent of their injuries.”

Darcy Graham is a doubt with a minor problem, but his fellow-winger Duhan van der Merwe will be back after being allowed to miss out last week in order to attend his twin sister’s wedding in South Africa.

“Darcy got a quad niggle early in the game - I saw him go down,” Everitt added. “He struggled a bit through the 80 minutes, and he’s also a guy that’s under examination at the moment. We’ll have a clear outcome of that tonight. It’s just short-term. Harry Paterson will be involved on Friday. Whether he starts or is on the bench depends on the outcome with Darcy.”

Paterson was a replacement on Saturday and was pressed into action after only five minutes because of the injury to Goosen. He can play at full-back or on the wing, but is likely to play in the latter position, with Emiliano Boffelli again taking the No 15 jersey.