England: Steve Borthwick offers injury update on back-row duo following Scotland victory
Tom Willis (left) and Tom Curry (right) both suffered injuries against Scotland.
England head coach Steve Borthwick has offered a key update on back-row duo Tom Curry and Tom Willis, after the pair were both taken off early into yesterday’s Calcutta Cup victory over Scotland.
Curry and Willis both started in the back-row in the 16-15 win over Scotland, but by the 50th minute, both men were on the sidelines.
Steve Borthwick offers key injury update
Curry’s injury was particularly worrying given his lengthy injury struggles in the past year, and he also missed a week of training during the build-up to the Scotland Test, but Borthwick has confirmed he suffered a dead leg and will likely be back up and running in a few days.
“Tom Curry has a dead leg,” the England boss said. “He took it early in the game, and he’s such a tough, brave competitor, and he kept going, but shortly after halftime it became too uncomfortable and I had to take him off the pitch.”
He added: “We expect Tom to be, as dead legs do, it’ll be few days before it settles down, but it’ll be good.”
But he was less sure regarding the fitness of Saracens number eight Willis, who failed an HIA in the first-half.
“Tom Willis was removed with an HIA, and is now in the care of the medical staff,” he said.
The fallow week does give Willis a better chance to make the Italy Test but, if he is still unavailable for selection, it would likely lead to a reshuffle of the back-row.
Ben Earl would probably slot back into number eight, where he has featured for virtually all of Borthwick’s tenure as England boss, with either Ben Curry or Chandler Cunningham-South coming in.
Both Ben Curry and Cunningham-South, who was an unused substitute against France, made a decent impact from the bench upon their arrival, and Borthwick was quick to praise them and the rest of the bench’s efforts in the win.
“We speak a lot around the impact of the bench,” he said. “I thought they were very good in that second half today and added a whole lot of impact. I think we’ve got good players.”
He added: “We have the makings of what is going to be a very good team and experiences like today, 23-man efforts like today, will really help us.”
England now turn their attention to a clash with Italy, before ending their Six Nations campaign against Wales on Super Saturday.
