It has been confirmed that Exeter flanker Tom Johnson will miss the entire of England’s Six Nations campaign due to a knee injury.
He damaged his medial ligaments against Leinster in the Heineken Cup on Sunday, but had originally only been expected to miss the first four weeks of the tournament.
Freddie Burns also suffered medial ligament damaged playing in Europe at the weekend. The Gloucester fly half is only expected to miss the first two games of the Six Nations though, against Scotland and Ireland.
Like Burns, Alex Corbisiero will also be sidelined for the opening two fixtures of the campaign, his niggling knee injury has yet to recover and a scan today confirmed his absence for the first two weekends of action.
It is a tough blow for England to lose these three players in the lead up to the Scotland fixture on the 2nd February, particularly after losing Northampton flanker Callum Clark for the duration of the campaign earlier in the week.
Manu Tuilagi is also a doubt for the Scotland game as he continues to struggle with the thigh injury that kept him out of Leicester’s Heineken Cup win against Toulouse at the weekend. There is still some hope in the England camp that he will make it though.
There was some good news for England though, Alex Goode has trained all week, with his injured shoulder seemingly back to normal. He will be sent back to Saracens to get some game time for them in the LV Cup this weekend, and assuming all goes well, he will be in contention to play against Scotland.
Scotland meanwhile are looking close to full strength, though David Denton, Johnnie Beattie, Tim Visser, Ruaraidh Jackson and Sean Lamont all sat out training today. All are expected to be in full training by the end of the week though.
