Ankle injury rules Hardie out until the New Year

JOHN HARDIE faces up to two months out of action as a result of being flattened by the Wallabies at Murrayfield last weekend. And Richie Gray has been sidelined by headaches as Scotland count the physical cost of their agonising one-point loss to Australia. Edinburgh back-row star Hardie (below) suffered concussion, knee and ankle damage when steamrollered in Saturday’s opening Autumn Test. And Scotland head coach Vern Cotter, who will be without a number of experienced players for tomorrow’s visit of Argentina, confirmed yesterday that Hardie won’t be back in action this side of the New Year. ‘He’s six to eight weeks and it sounds like he’s looking at an operation on his ankle,’ said Cotter, who revealed that his team had faced over 500 collisions in their bruising defeat. The SRU then confirmed last night that Hardie had undergone ‘corrective surgery on his ankle’ at Spire Murrayfield Hospital yesterday. Cotter said doctors were still trying to pinpoint why towering Toulouse lock Gray was suffering from headaches. ‘We’ve listed it as possible concussion because we’re unsure if it’s concussion or a neck issue,’ he revealed. ‘We’re having a look to see if he’s getting headaches from his neck. We’re just covering all bases. ‘He came back on to the pitch (after being assessed on Saturday) and was fine for two days. But now he’s getting headaches. So this is precautionary. We don’t want to put him out there until we know what it is, at least. We don’t like getting injuries but they always seem to happen. If you look at last weekend’s game, we counted over 500 collisions in the game. Richie has a big part in those and unfortunately he can’t take to the field this week.’