{"id":62803,"date":"2025-04-30T11:32:09","date_gmt":"2025-04-30T11:32:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/62803\/"},"modified":"2025-04-30T11:32:09","modified_gmt":"2025-04-30T11:32:09","slug":"england-star-in-race-against-time-for-british-and-irish-lions-selection-planet-rugby","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/62803\/","title":{"rendered":"England star in race against time for British and Irish Lions selection : Planet Rugby"},"content":{"rendered":"

Northampton Saints star George Furbank is out of this weekend\u2019s 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.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The fullback returned to action for the Saints\u2019 quarter-final win over Castres, scoring one of his side\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

He has not featured for the Saints since.<\/p>\n

George Furbank out of Champions Cup semi<\/p>\n

Speaking to members of the media ahead of his side\u2019s visit to the Aviva this weekend, Saints\u2019<\/a> director of rugby Phil Dowson confirmed the news his star back would again be absent.<\/p>\n

\u201cGeorge won\u2019t play this weekend,\u201d Dowson said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s struggling to get over that arm break, and getting back into contact is hard for him as he keeps getting whacked. It\u2019s very painful.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve asked the physio about 485 times if he can play, and the physio has said no every time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leinster provide RG Snyman and James Ryan update for Champions Cup semi-final<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

The Cambridgeshire-native was a core part of Northampton\u2019s title-winning side last season and had also become Steve Borthwick\u2019s go-to man at 15, but a broken arm picked up in their win over the Bulls in Pretoria has derailed his season.<\/p>\n

As a result of his injury, Furbank missed the entirety of England\u2019s Six Nations campaign, with Freddie Steward, Marcus Smith and Elliot Daly filling the void at full-back and only made his Saints\u2019 comeback in the win over Castres \u2013 four months after the initial injury.<\/p>\n

Prior to his injury, Furbank was one of the leading contenders to feature in Andy Farrell\u2019s British and Irish Lions<\/a> squad, and even if he didn\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s week by week,\u201d Dowson said. \u201cIt\u2019s clearly painful, and we don\u2019t want to make it any worse.\u00a0We\u2019re trying to manage it conservatively.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMy impression is that it takes a while to get back into it. There\u2019s not a huge amount of meat on that part of the body if you\u2019re landing on it in a tackle, or other people are.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI couldn\u2019t tell you what\u2019s going to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

READ MORE: Champions Cup: \u2018New kid on the block\u2019 set for biggest British and Irish Lions test while prolific French wingers threaten Toulouse\u2019s crown<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Northampton Saints star George Furbank is out of this weekend\u2019s Champions Cup semi-final against Leinster, and is now…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":62804,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5008],"tags":[748,5313,2383,393,26346,4884,225,522,12,10327,32433,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-62803","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-england","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-british-and-irish-lions","10":"tag-champions-cup","11":"tag-england","12":"tag-george-furbank","13":"tag-great-britain","14":"tag-home-page","15":"tag-international","16":"tag-news","17":"tag-northampton-saints","18":"tag-phil-dowson","19":"tag-uk","20":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114426697927156123","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62803","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62803"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62803\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62804"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}