Immanuel Feyi-Waboso has been ruled out of England’s pursuit of the triple crown while Steve Borthwick has concerns over the fitness of Ellis Genge for the Calcutta Cup on Saturday.
Feyi-Waboso pulled out of the 48-7 victory against Wales after sustaining a hamstring injury in training last Friday and was replaced by Tom Roebuck. According to Borthwick, the Exeter winger will be out for “a number of weeks”, ensuring he misses the trip to Murrayfield and the visit of Ireland to Twickenham a week later. Feyi-Waboso has not yet been ruled out of England’s entire campaign but the chances of him appearing seem remote.
“Manny looks like he will be out for a number of weeks,” Borthwick said. “I don’t know how many weeks – we’ve got specialist opinion before I know exactly how many weeks he is. That’s unfortunately the nature of elite sport – there are injuries and then you have to adapt. I thought Tom Roebuck did brilliantly.”
Genge was replaced by Bevan Rodd at half-time against Wales. He was deemed fit to start the match but Borthwick admitted afterwards that he was only ever going to play 40 minutes amid suggestions the loosehead prop was carrying a hamstring niggle. “He did really well to be fit to start and play,” Borthwick said. “We thought the right thing to do was to play him 40 and take him off. But he came off absolutely fine. It was more of a precautionary change than anything else.”
In better news for Borthwick, the Bath centre Ollie Lawrence is set to come back into contention to face Scotland after making progress in training while the Northampton fly-half Fin Smith is also in the frame for selection as England seek what would be only their second win at Murrayfield since 2016.
“Ollie looked really good training-wise at the end of last week,” Borthwick said. “Fin was back in full training last week and trained very well. He looked in great condition.”
