Little more than 24 hours after Eddie Jones admitted he was tempting fate by remarking that England’s injury list going into the Six Nations was the lowest for three years, his key player and captain Owen Farrell has had surgery to repair a thumb injury and will be out of action for between a week and 10 days.
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The England captain will travel to Portugal with Jones’s squad, an indication that he is expected to be fit to face Ireland in Dublin because the head coach is taking only players who will be available for selection for that match. But the nature of Farrell’s injury means he will not be able to catch a ball while he is recuperating.
It will restrict his time on the training field but such is his importance to England as a player as well as a leader, with Dylan Hartley missing the opening rounds of the Six Nations because of a knee injury, that Jones would leave him out only if he had no choice.
Mark McCall, Saracens’ director of rugby, does not expect it to come to that, however. “Owen has been complaining – but not very much – about his hand being a bit sore. We decided [on Friday] to send him for a scan to make sure we know what he’s got. We thought he was going to play today and it was after the scan that he was pulled out. It turned out to be a very minor problem with a tendon in his thumb. The procedure has already been done this morning.
“As far as I know he’ll be back in seven days, something like that, so he should be able to play a full part in the Six Nations. I’m sure he will be going to Portugal, because I think he’ll be available for selection. As far as I know England aren’t training until Friday and I think he’ll be able to train on the Friday, but I haven’t spoken to our medical team since the procedure was done.”
Speaking at the Netball Quad Series at the Copper Box Arena in London, Jones told Sky Sports News: “I came from Saracens, they had a good win. We’re cautiously optimistic, he should be all right.”
England fly to Portugal on Wednesday when Jones will initially have to rejig his back division and look at potential captaincy replacements.
Farrell was appointed co-captain with Hartley last November. By the end of the month he had, on the field at least, emerged as the first among equals and, having been moved back to his favoured position of fly-half having spent most of Jones’s reign playing outside George Ford at 12, he became central to England’s gameplan of attacking the gainline.
Ford would be the obvious option at No 10 but that would probably mean a rethink in the centre where Henry Slade has been used as the playmaker at 13 with the powerful Ben Te’o inside him. Manu Tuilagi would come into contention.
It would also raise the issue of a back-up 10. Danny Cipriani was left out of a squad that contains two players who have appeared at fly-half at club level, Slade and the recalled Exeter’s centre Ollie Devoto. The latter was cited as an option at fly-half by Jones last week. Jones has also talked about potential alternative captains and has mentioned the Vunipola brothers and Joe Launchbury as players he expected to show leadership. “Owen is maturing at a good rate and he is capable of captaining the side by himself,” said Jones. “The natural cycle is that you start off captaining the side like you’re a player and then you learn that everyone in the team is different and you start learning techniques and ways of developing relationships with players and referees.”
Ford captained England against the Barbarians last summer and against Samoa the previous autumn, but it is unlikely when he settled on his squad that Jones envisaged starting the Leicester fly-half in Dublin, a ground where two years ago England lost and missed out on the grand slam, having struggled to play with slow ball. Jones has the options of rectifying that with Te’o and Tuilagi midfield options and the Vunipola brothers fit and firing, but Farrell is central to his gameplan. England are being given little chance of winning in Dublin, where Ireland defeated New Zealand last autumn, but Jones sees it more as a contest of equals.
Ireland also have a concern at fly-half. Johnny Sexton has not played since just after Christmas because of a knee injury and will be assessed this week.