Marcus Smith: England fly-half suffers harm scare forward of Six Nations opener towards Italy | Rugby Union Information

Marcus Smith is a significant doubt for England’s opening Six Nations match towards Italy after limping out of Monday’s coaching session.

Smith was noticed on crutches in England’s coaching camp in Girona earlier than having a leg scan. His harm means Steve Borthwick’s aspect could also be left with simply two fly-halves in George Ford and the uncapped Fin Smith.

England have already got a protracted record of accidents as a number of gamers together with Manu Tuilagi, Ollie Lawrence, Anthony Watson, Luke Cowan-Dickie, George Martin and Nick Isiekwe are out.

“I’ve heard nothing on what he has carried out,” mentioned England assault coach Richard Wigglesworth.

“Hopefully very precautionary, the medical workers listed here are usually like that. I’ve not been up to date on that, since I’ve been again but when he isn’t [fit] it could positively be a blow for us.

“It wasn’t an enormous incident, that is why I hoped it was nothing a lot. He was simply jogging, it was by no means intensive however he pulled up and occurred to be proper subsequent to a physio when he did it by the sideline, so they only walked off after that. I noticed him stroll off however whenever you talked about crutches, I wasn’t conscious of that.”

Borthwick: Match-hardened England prepared for Six Nations battle

Borthwick’s 36-player squad have additionally comfortably racked up the very best variety of minutes performed because the World Cup as a consequence of their Premiership and European commitments.

Whereas England will enter the Six Nations depleted by a higher workload – they’ve accrued over two hours of recreation time extra per participant than subsequent highest France – Borthwick believes they’ve benefited from the competitiveness of English golf equipment.

Six Premiership groups have reached the knockout section of the Investec Champions Cup whereas the home league itself is extra compelling that ever following its discount in groups.

“The gamers are match-hardened, in order that’s a terrific profit. Typically I’ll strive to take a look at the constructive aspect and I’ve a gaggle of gamers which might be match-hardened. They’re able to go,” Borthwick mentioned.

“The opposite factor is the character of the Premiership. The entire video games are counting so the leverage of all these video games is large.

“And there have been groups combating in Europe to get qualification, combating to discover a solution to win which, once more, is an actual constructive.

“The whole lot we’re getting is saying all of the golf equipment are working greater than they have been 12 months in the past, in order that’s an actual constructive.”