Courtney Lawes has described the recent injury problems that left him with persistent headaches and affected vision caused by “headrush”, having been restored to the England captaincy for Saturday’s key Six Nations clash against Wales.
Lawes has been cleared to make his first appearance in six weeks at Twickenham this weekend, having been sidelined with a head injury since Northampton’s European Cup defeat by Ulster on 16 January. After arriving into camp with England later that month Lawes had a scan and visited a specialist who identified that the problem was with his vestibular system, or in his own words, “the connection between your eyes, ears and neck”, which had been “rattled”.
Jones believes Lawes will hit the ground running against Wales, describing his captain as someone who “tends to play pretty well fresh on to the paddock” and the Northampton loose forward, renowned for his tough tackling, is adamant he has no concerns over jumping back in at the deep end.
Lawes – who was cleared to return to full training last Friday – painted a candid picture of his symptoms over the past month and a half, however. “I guess pretty much the day after [the Ulster match] I had headaches which didn’t go away for a little while,” said the 33-year-old. “I also had headrush-like symptoms. It was explained to me that with the vestibular system you get headaches because the connection’s been rattled and your brain is having to compensate. Maybe your neck doesn’t think your head is in the position it is.
“When your brain has to compensate for that you get things like headaches and trouble with the eyes, which is why I was getting headrush or those kinds of symptoms. It was all explained quite well so I knew exactly what was going on. It gave me a bit of peace of mind. It wasn’t in one particular game. I had just taken a couple of little knocks the past month or two or so. I was a little worried, obviously because it is to do with your head, but I came into camp and we got a scan and saw a specialist and he said it was nothing to do with my brain which was a massive relief. We have been going pretty hard this week [in training] and I have come through it fine, I am pretty confident.”
England v Wales teams, 4.45pm GMT kick-off, Saturday 26 February
England: Steward; Malins, Slade, Daly, Nowell; Smith, Randall; Genge, Cowan-Dickie, Sinckler, Ewels, Itoje, Lawes (capt), Curry, Dombrandt. Replacements: George, Marler, Stuart, Isiekwe, Simmonds, Youngs, Ford, Marchant.
Wales: L Williams; Cuthbert, Watkin, Tompkins, Adams; Biggar (capt), T Williams; W Jones, Elias, Francis, Rowlands, Beard, Moriarty, Basham, Faletau. Replacements: Lake, G Thomas, Brown, S Davies, Morgan, Hardy, Anscombe, J Davies.
Tom Curry captained England in the defeat by Scotland and the victory over Italy but Jones revealed it was always the plan to turn to Lawes once he had recovered. Lawes proved a popular captain for the autumn victories over Tonga and South Africa, with 90 caps he brings considerable experience to a game England must win if they are to keep alive any realistic hopes of winning the title, and a lightness of touch around the dressing room.
Jones conceded that Ben Youngs was “not happy” to be named only on the bench as he prepares to break Jason Leonard’s all-time England caps record but Lawes believes the current England squad has a more compassionate side than in years gone by. Asked if that was the case, he said: “I’d say so, yeah, definitely. The motivation now is to play for each other and we really do have that nailed on now. We commit to everything we do in the week, we buy into each other and therefore we owe it to each other to turn up on the weekend.
“Obviously [Ben] will be disappointed, he won’t show it. He’s still going to give everything he can to the team and that’s credit to himself and the team, because I would expect every one of the players to be disappointed, definitely, but to still contribute to the efforts at the weekend.”
