Devastating injury prognosis for Jonathan Davies, but at least Rhys Patchell should be back sooner
Wales’ Six Nations title defence has been dealt a huge early blow as Jonathan Davies will miss the entire championship through injury.
An ever-present during the 2019 Grand Slam success under Warren Gatland, the Scarlets centre will now miss Wayne Pivac’s first campaign in charge as Wales' new boss.
In a media statement released on Tuesday morning by Scarlets, it was reported that Davies faces surgery following an injury sustained at the recent World Cup where Wales finished in fourth place after semi-final defeat to South Africa was followed by the loss to New Zealand in the third-place play-off.
‘Jonathan Davies faces at least six months recovering from knee surgery,’ ready the Scarlets release, a prognosis that leaves him doubtful to play any part in his club’s season, never mind help out his former boss Pivac as he switches from regional to Test level coaching.
Confirmation of Davies’ lengthy lay-off was accompanied by further bad injury news concerning Rhys Patchell.
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He too is facing surgery and while the lay-off isn’t as considerable as it is for Davies, he still won’t be available for the early stages of Six Nations which opens at home to Italy on February 1 and is followed a week later by the visit to Ireland.
“Rhys Patchell is expected to return to play between 12-16 weeks following a shoulder injury,” read the Scarlets statement.
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Nah, that just needs some more variation. Chip kicks, grubber stabs, all those. Will Jordan showed a pretty good reason why the rush was bad for his link up with BB.
If you have an overlap on a rush defense, they naturally cover out and out and leave a huge gap near the ruck.
It also helps if both teams play the same rules. ARs set the offside line 1m past where the last mans feet were😅
Go to commentsYeah nar, should work for sure. I was just asking why would you do it that way?
It could be achieved by outsourcing all your IP and players to New Zealand, Japan, and America, with a big Super competition between those countries raking it in with all of Australia's best talent to help them at a club level. When there is enough of a following and players coming through internally, and from other international countries (starting out like Australia/without a pro scene), for these high profile clubs to compete without a heavy australian base, then RA could use all the money they'd saved over the decades to turn things around at home and fund 4 super sides of their own that would be good enough to compete.
That sounds like a great model to reset the game in Aus. Take a couple of decades to invest in youth and community networks before trying to become professional again. I just suggest most aussies would be a bit more optimistic they can make it work without the two decades without any pro club rugby bit.
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