Saints' growing list of injured stars has grave ramifications for England

Northampton Saints’ bid for a Gallagher PREM and Investec Champions Cup double has suffered a blow with the news that England tighthead Trevor Davison is set to have an operation on a knee injury he suffered in the win over Saracens last weekend.

Davison, who came off the bench in all five of England’s Six Nations games, limped out of Saints’ 21-17 Gallagher PREM win at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium just minutes after coming on as a replacement and has a date with a surgeon’s knife tomorrow.

Saints boss Phil Dowson says that the club won’t know the full extent of the damage to Davison’s knee ligaments until it’s assessed by the surgeon who is performing the operation, and is keeping his fingers crossed for good news.

“Trev’s not good. He’s having surgery tomorrow, so he’ll miss the rest of the season. He’s a huge part of the squad, and he’s been a big part of our success over the past couple of seasons.

“His signing, coming in from Newcastle Falcons, in the season before we won the league, he had a huge impact on and off the field. We want to support him, and hopefully, his surgery tomorrow goes as smoothly as it can and gets him back on the road to playing.

Fixture

Investec Champions Cup

Northampton

12:00

3 Apr 26

Castres

All Stats and Data

“They’re not sure about what the ACL, PCL, and the rest of it looks like, until they get in there. So, they’ll probably find out more. ?We’ve got our fingers crossed for tomorrow, that when they go in, it doesn’t look too bad,” said Dowson.

Davison came into Steve Borthwick’s England squad following surgeries to both Will Stuart (Achilles) and Asher Opoku-Fordjour (shoulder). With the pair still not back, the England boss may need to plunge further into his tighthead reserves in July.

Joining Davison on the sidelines for the Champions Cup last-16 clash with Castres at Franklins Gardens on Friday night is England fly-half Fin Smith, who is under return-to-play protocols.

Dowson said that his other England stars on the treatment table, Alex Mitchell and Alex Coles, are “both improving,” while Manny Iyogun “had a back spasm, not too bad,” he added.