Exeter coach Rob Baxter has revealed that hooker Chris Whitehead is likely to miss the next three months as he looks to cure an ongoing neck issue.
The 26-year-old forward, who recently penned a new two-year contract with the Aviva Premiership club, is due to undergo surgery later this week.
"Chris has a relatively serious injury and is going to have an operation on Tuesday, and he is going to be out for ten to 12 weeks," said Baxter.
"Chris has an on-going neck problem, a typical hooker's problem, a bit of a degenerative issue, which we ultimately have to make a decision on. It is either a case of letting it get worse or deal with it now.
"Our other three hookers - Neil Clark, Simon Alcott and Jack Yeandle - are fit and raring to go, so we felt the time was right now. Chris is going to be with us for a long time. We don't want to keep playing him when the injury is worsening, and end up breaking him. We feel it is right to get him treated now, get him 100 per cent, and he should be back before the end of the season."
Comments
timothy says...
The extreme pressure on hookers and tight heads at scrumdown is a needless thing.
Reverse the hooker's binding position. Instead of the hooker's arms draping over the prop's shoulders let the props hang over and around the hooker. The pressure point is dispersed evenly. Also from this position the # 2 has a choice whether or not to engage his locks simply by raising or lowering his rear bumper. Many years ago the idea was to jam the hooker farther into the tunnel where he could hook the ball: but now adays they just feed the second row. This hooker under bind or the "sevens bind" as it is sometimes called is already in the law - if we would just use it. This small adjustment in binding technique takes the front row from slightly convex to slightly concave.
Posted 15:33 09th December 2012