Steve Borthwick is facing mounting injury problems before England’s Six Nations campaign with Courtney Lawes a major doubt to face Scotland amid concerns over an escalating crisis at hooker.
Lawes has withdrawn from this week’s training camp and must be considered unlikely to be ready for the Calcutta Cup on 4 February while there are serious doubts over Jamie George – the only senior hooker in Borthwick’s squad.
Compounding Borthwick’s problems, there are also fitness worries over Elliot Daly and Mako Vunipola while George McGuigan has also pulled out of the squad, leaving England all the more short at hooker.
Lawes sustained a calf injury in Northampton’s defeat by La Rochelle on Saturday – only his third start of the season – and was due to have a scan on Monday. His absence would be a critical blow for Borthwick, who is already without Tom Curry in the back row, not least because the 33-year-old was named vice-captain last week. Borthwick did not rule Lawes out of the Scotland match at this stage but conceded the injury “did not look good”.
George, meanwhile, sustained a concussion in Saracens’s defeat by Edinburgh on Sunday. The 12-day return-to-play protocols mean that Borthwick is likely to have to name his starting XV before George is free to fully train. With Luke Cowan-Dickie already ruled out, however, there are limited options with the uncapped Jack Walker and Bath’s Tom Dunn, who was summoned on Monday, the other hookers in the squad. David Ribbans has been added in place of Lawes.
Vunipola and Daly were still due to meet up for this week’s camp in Bagshot but are nursing foot and hamstring injuries respectively. “Would I want players to train in every session? Yeah, I would,” Borthwick said. “The reality is that’s never the case. Every player is managed on an individual basis. Then there is a judgment call that I make farther down the track.”
Meanwhile, Borthwick has urged his players to avoid making the same mistakes that he made as a player. The new head coach won 57 caps and captained England on 21 occasions but conceded he reflects with a sense of what might have been.
“I look back at a lot of that time and I regret a lot of the things I didn’t do,” he said. “I want to help these young guys not make the mistakes I made. When they’re old and have no hair like me, I want them to not have regrets. I don’t want them looking back thinking ‘I wish I’d done that or I could have done that’.
“I wish I could go back to that point where I captained England and I could go back to that day when I made my debut, I wish I could go through those experiences again and try to be even better. I don’t want these players looking back on their careers with regret. Let’s have a real go. Let’s really try to bring every bit of our strengths on to the pitch.”
