More woe for Davies
JONATHAN Davies has suffered yet more injury frustration, with the Wales centre ruled out of the Scarlets’ Guinness PRO14 clash with defending champions Leinster on Saturday.
The 2017 British and Irish Lions player of the series pulled up in the warm-up ahead of his long-awaited comeback against Ulster last weekend and won’t be risked against the Irish province.
Davies hasn’t played a competitive game of rugby since suffering a serious foot injury in Wales’s defeat by Australia last November.
He figured in the pre-season outing against Bath last month but is now back in the Parc y Scarlets treatment room.
“Jon is such a finely-tuned athlete, he is in great shape and itching to go, but he has felt a hamstring, he has got a little niggle,” confirmed head coach Wayne Pivac
“It is something at this stage of the season you don’t risk.
“The right decision was made and he withdrew from the (Ulster) game just before kick-off.
“We are monitoring him and he is in the treatment room getting treatment every day.
“It is too soon for this weekend. We have to be smart on these things. He has a lot of rugby ahead of him and we are only into week two.
“I don’t think it is going to be long term. It will be a week-by-week basis but we won’t push him and will get him 100% right.
“It is really important with the sort of injury he did have that the volume he is getting in training is right. He has been out for some time so we have to be mindful of that.
“A couple of niggles have crept in and we just want to get him 100%.”
Although Davies has handed Pivac yet another injury concern — the Scarlets headed to Belfast without 14 players — the New Zealander is hopeful of welcoming back some key personnel for the round-two clash in Llanelli.
Wales internationals Hadleigh Parkes, Leigh Halfpenny, Samson Lee and Jake Ball are all set to come into contention, along with versatile back Paul Asquith and Kiwi flyer Johnny McNicholl.
Parkes fractured his finger on Wales’s summer tour, while Halfpenny (groin strain) and Lee (fractured cheekbone) picked up injuries in Bath.
The return of second row Ball will be a welcome one.
Like Davies, he hasn’t played a competitive match since last autumn when he suffered a shoulder dislocation in the November Test against the All Blacks.
He played 40 minutes of the Scarlets’ pre-season friendly against Bristol, but picked up a knock on the opposite shoulder, which ruled him out of last weekend’s Ulster opener, a match the Scarlets lost 15-13 (see report in our pullout inside).
Fly-half Rhys Patchell suffered a blow to the head in the second half at the Kingspan and is currently going through the necessary head injury assessment.
Pivac confirmed he is a doubt, but was more positive over his understudy Dan Jones, who will undergo a late fitness test after taking a knock on the hip.
With new signing Angus O’Brien still recovering from a broken hand, Pivac will consider the likes of Parkes, Asquith, Clayton Blommetjies and Sam HidalgoClyne as No. 10 cover should Patchell and Jones be ruled out.