Wales star hit with a double surgery setback and will miss the start of the Premiership season
Exeter Chiefs and Wales lock Dafydd Jenkins.
Wales and Exeter Chiefs second-row Dafydd Jenkins will spend several weeks on the sidelines after the Premiership club confirmed that he had surgery on knee and shoulder injuries.
Exeter’s director of rugby, Rob Baxter, revealed that it’s difficult to provide a timeframe for the 21-year-old’s return to action.
Baxter said timescales on a Jenkins‘ comeback are currently “a little bit fluid”, although he confirmed that the 10-cap Wales international will definitely miss the start of the new season.
Exeter will get their 2024/25 Premiership campaign underway at Sandy Park against Leicester Tigers on September 21, while Wales’ first end-of-year Test is against Fiji at the Principality Stadium in Cardiff on November 10.
Captained Wales in the Six Nations
Jenkins is a vital cog in the Exeter Chiefs machine and despite his young age, he also captained Wales in all their matches during their 2024 Six Nations campaign.
However, he missed his country’s clash with the Springboks at Twickenham in June but was back in action for their two July internationals against the Wallabies in Australia.
“It is tough and frustrating for Dafydd,” said Baxter. “He has had surgery on a knee issue sustained on the summer tour with Wales, then he’s had a sore shoulder/rotator-cuff type of injury as well.
“Both the club and Wales feel now is the right time to have them both addressed.
“He is a young man who has played a lot of rugby for both Chiefs and Wales, so it is important that he gets them sorted properly now so that he has that extended period of rehab to get himself back fit and ready for what everyone knows is going to be a very good career.
“Obviously, timescales are a little bit fluid at the moment.
‘An incredibly hard worker and rehabber’
“We’ve got to see in the early initial period of his rehab where he will get to, but one thing we know – from every other injury he has had – is that Dafydd is an incredibly hard worker and rehabber.
“If anybody can accelerate the process of getting back from these operations, then we are sure Dafydd will.”
Jenkins is the latest Exeter star who will miss the start of the new season after the club confirmed earlier this month that England centre Henry Slade also had an operation on a shoulder injury.
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