RUGBY NEWS:ENGLAND HAVE suffered a major blow ahead of their Six Nations campaign with the news that Northampton forward Courtney Lawes will miss the entire championship.
Lawes suffered a knee injury in Saturday’s 27-16 English Premiership defeat at Leicester, although coach Jim Mallinder was upbeat over the likely recovery time after the match.
But national team manager Martin Johnson’s worst fears have been confirmed after medical examinations revealed ligament damage, resulting in an expected a three-month lay-off.
A club spokesman said yesterday: “He’s damaged a medial cruciate ligament and is expected to be out for around about three months. But we expect him to play before the end of the season.”
Lawes made his England debut as a replacement for Louis Deacon in an 18-9 defeat to Australia in November 2009 but it was during last November’s Investec Internationals that he truly established himself at international level.
He started all four games during the autumn series and played a starring role in the 35-18 win over Australia at Twickenham, which included supplying the pass from which club-mate Chris Ashton scored his memorable length-of-the-field breakaway try.
Lawes has made 11 appearances for the Saints this season, scoring one try in October’s 37-10 win over Wasps.With Dave Attwood suspended, Louis Deacon and Simon Shaw are likely to compete for a place in the team alongside Tom Palmer, while Johnson may consider handing a recall to the former captain, Steve Borthwick.
Johnson will hope for better news over Lawes’s club team-mate Chris Ashton, who has a quad injury, but Tom Croft, the Leicester flanker, is nursing a shoulder injury and is a major doubt.
Fiji’s military-led government has ordered the board of the Fijian Rugby Union to be replaced before they will release €1.25 million to help prepare the national team for the World Cup in New Zealand later this year.
Sports Minister Filipe Bole said the funding was contingent on mass resignations of the FRU board after Commerce Commission officials raided the union office last week following an investigation into a fundraising lottery. The Commerce Commission said there was a discrepancy of about €120,000 in the Union’s lottery account.
