Injuries blow for Nakarawa, Bennett, Scott
Glasgow Warriors forward Leone Nakarawa is out for at least a month after sustaining a knee injury in last weekend’s win over the Dragons in the Guinness Pro14.
The Fiji No 8 was a popular New Year re-signing for the Warriors but head coach Dave Rennie revealed yesterday that the 31-year-old was out with a medial collateral ligament injury.
“He injured his knee on the weekend. It looks like an MCL, so he’ll be out for a few weeks,” said Rennie. Nakarawa, who was part of Glasgow’s Pro12 title-winning team in 2015, returned to the club after being released by Racing 92 following his late return from the Rugby World Cup.
“Generally you can get them back and going inside six weeks, so that’s the plan,” added Rennie.
Scrum-half George Horne and centre Huw Jones are named in the starting XV for thirdplaced Glasgow’s clash with Conference A-topping Leinster at the RDS in Dublin.
Edinburgh also suffered injury blows yesterday with the news that Matt Scott and Mark Bennett have both succumbed to familiar problems, with the former out with another head injury and the latter a hamstring complaint.
“I don’t think it’s going to
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be anything major,” said Edinburgh defence coach Calum Macrae ahead of tonight’s Pro14 visit of Cardiff Blues to the Conference B table toppers at BT Murrayfield.
“They both picked up knocks last week, Matt’s is a head knock and that is something we want to make sure he is looked after appropriately.”
Scott, who has 39 Scotland caps, spent five months out with a serious concussion problem in the 2018-19 season.
“Mark Bennett picked up a bit of a niggle during the [Connacht] game to his hamstring. It’s just one of those situations,” added Macrae.
Bennett, who has 22 Scotland caps and won an Olympic silver medal with the Great Britain sevens side as they lost to Nakarawa’s Fiji at Rio 2016, lost most of last season due to a ruptured hamstring sustained in September 2018.
“I’m not a medic but we trust those guys to do their job in that department,” said Macrae. “Every injury is taken on an individual basis so I’m not looking at them in the broader sense. Ultimately they are down at the moment but I am sure they’ll be back in contention for selection pretty soon.
“Again it is a case of those other guys stepping up. We haven’t got major concerns with Mark and Matt being out this week, we back the other guys to come in and get the job done.”