'Furbs says it's grim': Dowson's update on England contender's injury

Northampton Saints director of rugby Phil Dowson has revealed that scrum-half Archie McParland suffered a “deep laceration above the knee” in the Gallagher PREM final, allaying any fears that the England hopeful had suffered a serious injury in his side’s 26-17 title win over Exeter Chiefs at Twickenham’s Allianz Stadium.

The 21-year-old lasted only 11 minutes before being forced from the field after injuring himself while vainly attempting to prevent Campbell Ridl from scoring Exeter’s opening try.

The injury forced Alex Mitchell onto the field, who was making his return after picking up a hamstring injury in camp with England in May. The scrum-half had been touch and go heading into the final, but came through his 70-minute cameo off the bench unscathed, although it may have been more minutes than Dowson, and indeed Mitchell himself, may have wanted.

McParland joined Mitchell in the England camp as one of five scrum-halves, and is in contention to make his Test debut in July following a barnstorming campaign.

Despite his injury being described as “grim” by captain George Furbank, it initially appears that it will not jeopardise his attempt to break into the England set-up in July when Steve Borthwick’s side face South Africa, Fiji and Argentina.

“The only thing I have on Archie is he’s been strapped up, he had a deep laceration above the knee that couldn’t then be dealt with. Furbs says it’s grim,” Dowson said.

“He’s exhausted,” the director of rugby said of replacement scrum-half Mitchell. “He was probably a little disappointed that Archie went off as well. Credit to Mitch, he hasn’t trained a huge amount, he hasn’t played recently, and to put in that performance together, although rusty at times, I thought was exceptional. Very hard to fluster Mitch, because he came on and did very, very well.”