Northampton Saints star George Furbank is out of this weekend’s Champions Cup semi-final against Leinster, and is now in a race against time to be fit for either England or the British and Irish Lions this summer.
The fullback returned to action for the Saints’ quarter-final win over Castres, scoring one of his side’s seven tries in the 51-16 win, but he appeared to take a knock on his arm in the act of scoring and was later taken off.
He has not featured for the Saints since.
George Furbank out of Champions Cup semi
Speaking to members of the media ahead of his side’s visit to the Aviva this weekend, Saints’ director of rugby Phil Dowson confirmed the news his star back would again be absent.
“George won’t play this weekend,” Dowson said.
“He’s struggling to get over that arm break, and getting back into contact is hard for him as he keeps getting whacked. It’s very painful.
“I’ve asked the physio about 485 times if he can play, and the physio has said no every time.”
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The Cambridgeshire-native was a core part of Northampton’s title-winning side last season and had also become Steve Borthwick’s go-to man at 15, but a broken arm picked up in their win over the Bulls in Pretoria has derailed his season.
As a result of his injury, Furbank missed the entirety of England’s Six Nations campaign, with Freddie Steward, Marcus Smith and Elliot Daly filling the void at full-back and only made his Saints’ comeback in the win over Castres – four months after the initial injury.
Prior to his injury, Furbank was one of the leading contenders to feature in Andy Farrell’s British and Irish Lions squad, and even if he didn’t make that he would have certainly toured the Americas with England this summer; however, this latest injury concern puts him in another race against time to be fit.
“It’s week by week,” Dowson said. “It’s clearly painful, and we don’t want to make it any worse. We’re trying to manage it conservatively.”
“My impression is that it takes a while to get back into it. There’s not a huge amount of meat on that part of the body if you’re landing on it in a tackle, or other people are.”
“I couldn’t tell you what’s going to happen.”