England skipper's concussion issues remain
INJURY UPDATE: England captain Courtney Lawes is still suffering symptoms after suffering a head injury five weeks ago, Northampton boss Phil Dowson has revealed.
Lawes has not played since suffering the injury against Leicester on September 24.
The Saints forward pulled out of this week’s England training camp in Jersey as he follows required return-to-play protocols.
It remains unclear if the 33-year-old will feature when England kick-off their year-end campaign against Argentina on November 6.
Owen Farrell, Ellis Genge and Tom Curry are the leading candidates to replace Lawes as skipper if he misses out.
“He went to see a specialist this week. He will keep going through the process until he feels better,” Dowson said after Northampton’s 45-31 Premiership victory over Bristol on Saturday.
“It’s day by day with him. He is biking, lifting weights and running.
“He still gets symptoms, and we cannot move beyond that point until he is OK.
“If he feels brilliant on Monday and he is flying around and Eddie (Jones) wants him to play some minutes, it’s up to him.
“He won’t necessarily need to play for us first because he usually drops right in. It will be interesting to see what Eddie says.”
Harlequins head coach Tabai Matson was left with shredded nerves after his side’s 26-24 victory over local rivals London Irish.
The derby at the Twickenham Stoop twisted on multiple occasions, with London Irish nudging ahead again after seeing a 14-0 half-time lead slip away during the second half.
With red cards for Irish’s Ben Donnell and Harlequins’ Nick David, there were already plenty of talking points before replacement hooker George Head snatched victory for the hosts in stoppage time.
“It’s great to watch as a fan, but as a coach, jeepers, it’s frustrating, especially the first half for us,” Matson said.
“But ultimately it’s such a tight competition, this was never going to be an easy fixture and to scrape away with a win in the 84th or 85th minute is probably the most important thing.”
