Jamal Ford-Robinson suffers cruel setback amid injury hell

Gloucester boss George Skivington has confirmed that Jamal Ford-Robinson’s injury hell continues after he needed another operation, this time on a hamstring injury he suffered in a training game against Bristol Bears.

Ford-Robinson, 33, who operates on both sides of the front row, only played four games last season between two dates with the surgeon’s knife for knee injuries, and his last game for the Cherry and Whites came in the defeat at Newcastle Red Bulls on January 2.

Skivington believes that Ford-Robinson will be out of action for another couple of months but will hold off looking for an injury replacement unless something happens to new signing Marco Fepulea’i, who is in full training.

“It is definitely severe enough that he had surgery, which is an unusual and random one for a prop. He did it in a tackle during a second-team game against Bristol after we played the Prem Cup game.

“We went to the training centre and took the rest of the squad for a hit-out. Unfortunately, he did it in a tackle. It’s a shame because we obviously haven’t seen a lot of him on the field in the last sort of 18 months, and now he’s going to be out a bit longer.

“I think he’ll definitely be out for a couple of months, but these things always depend on the individual and on how quickly they heal and how diligent you are with your rehab,” he said.

Skivington says that Gloucester’s medical team are still assessing a foot injury that inside centre Phil Cokanasiga picked up on his debut in the win over Exeter Chiefs last weekend.

“We’re not quite sure where we are with Phil yet. He just seemed to hurt his foot as he was running at the end. So we’re just checking that. We’re pretty fit and healthy, and the lads are looking after them at the front end of the week, and they trained really, really hard today,” he added.