The England captain Courtney Lawes is set to see a specialist to determine whether he will play again this season after sustaining a “nasty” hand injury, Northampton’s director of rugby, Chris Boyd, has revealed.
Lawes sustained a compound dislocation of his left thumb in the European Challenge Cup quarter‑final defeat by Gloucester last Saturday and was replaced after just 15 minutes. Boyd did not put any sort of time-frame on the 33-year-old’s recovery, stating only that he will definitely not be in contention for the Premiership match against Bath on Saturday.
His short-term absence is a blow for Northampton, who are chasing a top-four spot and a prolonged spell on the sidelines could hinder their push for the playoffs. England’s three-Test tour of Australia this summer is also coming into view and Eddie Jones, the head coach, will be desperate to have Lawes fit and firing, given he has captained the national side five times this term in Owen Farrell’s absence.
When asked if Lawes would be back before the end of the season, Boyd said: “The hand specialist will come back and say X, Y or Z and whatever he says will happen. I’m not sure whether a scan will determine that but he certainly needs specialist consultation to see what the best course of action is going forward.
“It [the injury] was quite nasty. The bone actually came out, but it either popped back in or it was put back in and it has been irrigated and sewn back up again. He has still got some medical decisions to be made around the skeletal function of the thumb and the muscle and ligament situation.
“Until we get a clear medical view, all I can say is he won’t play on Saturday. He came into training today. He was disappointed. He didn’t want to look at it because he knew it was going to be a bit challenging. He’s as good as can be.”
Lawes has already had an interrupted season, having missed the first two games of England’s disappointing Six Nations campaign because of a problem with his vestibular system, symptoms of which included headaches and “head‑rush”, which kept him out of action for six weeks.
He returned to captain England in the narrow win against Wales, however, and counting in his favour Jones at the time referred to Lawes as someone who “tends to play pretty well fresh on to the paddock”.
