Surgery required for 'superhuman' Tom Curry but Lions worries put to rest

Tom Curry’s hamstring injury will “not rule him out of anything other than maybe this weekend”, Sale director of rugby Alex Sanderson has said.

A day on from being selected for this summer’s British and Irish Lions tour to Australia, Curry last Friday limped off in the first half of Sale’s 44-34 Gallagher Premiership defeat at Leicester.

Asked for an update on the flanker ahead of this Friday’s home clash with Bristol, Sanderson said: “Tom’s injury is as good as we could have hoped for, given the fact that he’s really tough and he felt something, so when he says he feels something, you’re automatically think the worst.

“It’s a 1D on his hamstring, which is like the lowest grade you can have on a hamstring injury. It will not rule him out of anything other than maybe this weekend.

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“He was one of five or six that were scanned over the weekend, and all of them have come back with positive scans, which is great for this weekend and hopefully for the finals.”

Curry also has a wrist ligament issue which Sanderson says the Lions are aware of, with the player planning to have an operation after the tour.

“He will need operation at some point, but he’s clearly able to manage it and play through whatever pain he’s experiencing currently,” Sanderson said.

“It’s not something that is stopping his game minutes or something that’s managing his training minutes either.

“He had to play and play through to see if he could, and if the risk was minimised, which the specialist was happy with, and the pain was manageable, which it clearly is for the superhuman that he is, then he’d put himself up for Lions selection.

“The alternative is he could have an operation now and he’d probably miss the last run of games and he might miss the first two games of the Lions, and that wasn’t a solution because the level of competition for his position was so high, he had to see if he could manage it.

“I’m really happy that he has been able to and continues to be able to.”