Wasps sweating on Malakai Fekitoa injury

David Skippers

Wasps are sweating over the fitness of star centre Malakai Fekitoa after he limped off the field in Saturday’s 47-24 Premiership semi-final triumph over Bristol.

Groin injury

He injured his groin during the early stages of that encounter after a clash with his direct opponent, Semi Radradra. Fekitoa continued to play but was replaced by Michael Le Bourgeois immediately after scoring a try just ten minutes into that game.

“We’re still awaiting his scan results,” said Wasps head coach Lee Blackett told Coventry Live. “It’s obviously his groin. For a guy to leave the field the way he left it, you know it’ll be serious enough.

“We’ll do everything we can to get him back out there but until we see the scan results we won’t know exactly where he is.”

Fekitoa has been one of Wasps’ star players and helped his club rise from tenth in the Premiership standings to second. Blackett wasn’t too optimistic about the 28-year-old’s chances of recovery and said: “It’s very doubtful he’ll be in training this week.”

If he does not feature in the Premiership final, it will be another setback for Wasps as they are already without the services of another centre, Ryan Mills, who broke a bone in his foot last month.

The club have two other specialist outside centres in Juan de Jongh and Sam Spink, but both players have had little game time.

Springbok De Jongh has been hampered by injury and has played just once – in Wasps’ 28-18 win over Saracens at Allianz Park in Round 18 – since the season’s restart after the break due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

21-year-old Spink is very inexperienced and has played just 23 minutes since the season restarted in August. That was when he came on as a replacement for Fekitoa and scored a try in Wasps’ 54-7 win over Leicester Tigers at the Ricoh Arena in Round 19.

Blackett gave an update on De Jongh and Spink’s availability.

“Juan’s in his last day of return to play today (hamstring) so he’ll be in full training come Thursday and then Sam Spink’s been back in training for a couple of weeks obviously played the Leicester game. He’s been back in training so he’s fine.”