George Ford faces missing England’s autumn campaign due to the injury he sustained on Sale duty last Saturday. His club are still waiting for results of a scan to discover the full extent of the fly-half’s layoff, but there are fears Ford could be out of action for between six and eight weeks with a torn quad muscle.
England begin the Autumn Nations Series against the All Blacks on 2 November so it would be a blow for the 31-year-old, who missed the summer tour of Japan and New Zealand to have surgery on a troublesome achilles tendon, having started all of England’s matches in last season’s Six Nations.