The England No8 Ben Morgan is unlikely to play again this season after having surgery on the left leg he broke playing for Gloucester against Saracens on Friday night. The club will not say exactly when they hope the 25-year-old will be back, but the initial fears were that he could be out for up to six months.
That would not just rule him out of the whole of the Six Nations championship but leave him with little time to prove his fitness for the World Cup that starts in September. Morgan started the autumn international series behind Billy Vunipola at No8 but regained his place and his fine form meant he was named England’s man of the month.
Morgan suffered the break in the lower part of his left leg after breaking away from a scrum and being trapped in a tackle. He was treated on the field for five minutes before being taken to hospital.
“Ben Morgan has suffered a fracture to his lower left leg and had surgery performed on Saturday morning,” said Gloucester’s statement. “He will commence an appropriate rehabilitation programme for this type of injury over the coming weeks.”
Stuart Lancaster names his England squad on 21 January. While the head coach has Vunipola to replace Morgan, he will need another ball-carrying No8 for the bench. Their Six Nations campaign starts in Cardiff against Wales next month, a ground where they suffered a record defeat two years ago when Morgan was injured and not replaced in kind.
The Exeter No8 Thomas Waldrom, the leading try scorer in the Premiership this season with nine in 12 matches, was called into the squad in November but Lancaster may use Morgan’s injury as an opportunity to look at Steffon Armitage, a flanker who plays mostly at No8 for Toulon, ahead of schedule having planned to name him in a large squad to start preparing in the summer for the World Cup.
Harlequins’ director of rugby, Conor O’Shea, believes England should call on a player who last appeared for them in the 2011 World Cup, Nick Easter, who was man of the match in Quins’ victory over Leicester at the Stoop.
“Nick is not just world class but out of this world,” said O’Shea of the 36-year-old. “He is in great shape, has just signed another two-year contract with us and when I spoke to Stuart about Nick last year, he said he wanted to know whether Nick would be playing at the time of the World Cup. He will and he wants to play for England again, something his performances merit.”
Meanwhile, Bath’s Sam Burgess scored his first senior rugby union try to give at least some cheer to those England coaches who are monitoring his progress. In his best game for the side so far the former rugby league player went over 45 minutes into the 39-26 home win against Wasps.
