Easing of England rugby injury fears

Saracens and Northampton rugby bosses say their England stars are in no danger of missing the November internationals.

Saracens director of rugby Mark McCall tried to allay concerns over the fitness of Owen Farrell after the England fly-half missed Saturday's 40-19 Premiership win over Sale with a thigh strain.

Fears had been raised over Farrell's availability for England's November internationals at home to New Zealand, South Africa, Samoa and Australia after he suffered the injury in the previous weekend's 36-32 victory against London Irish.

Farrell also missed the last Test of the June series against world champions New Zealand because of a knee problem and returned to the treatment room having started just one match of the new European season.

However, McCall, speaking after Saracens' comprehensive defeat of Sale -- a result that left last season's losing Premiership finalists with the only perfect record in this term's English top flight -- said: "It's a very minor strain and we're looking at a couple of weeks, maximum."

Bath, fresh from their spectacular 45-0 thrashing of Leicester last weekend, saw their unbeaten start to the Premiership end with a 31-24 loss away to champions Northampton.

After the match, Northampton boss Jim Mallinder also found himself playing down injury concerns regarding the Saints' trio of England forwards in Tom Wood, Courtney Lawes and Alex Corbisiero.

Neither flanker Wood nor lock Lawes started the match while injury-plagued prop Corbisiero went off during the second half at Franklin's Gardens.

"Alex took a bang to his shoulder. I don't think it is anything worse than that," Mallinder said.

"Tom has got a bit of a sore back and Courtney a sore shoulder," he added. "They are improving and hopefully with an extra week they will be fit to play down at London Irish next Saturday."

Meanwhile Leicester boss Richard Cockerill risked disciplinary action by slamming referee Greg Garner after the injury-hit Tigers, with nearly half their first-choice team sidelined, suffered back-to-back defeats with a 22-19 loss at home to London Irish.

Cockerill was at a loss to understand how Leicester No.8 Jordan Crane was sent to the sin bin for barging into a ruck while Exiles flanker Blair received nothing more than a warning after appearing to punch Jamie Gibson in the face.

"If a punch in the face is a penalty and a ticking off -- I thought it was an automatic red card - and a player who drops his shoulder into someone lying on the wrong side gets a yellow card...

"I didn't think the referee had a good performance," Cockerill said.


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