Edinburgh bracing for bad news on Emiliano Boffelli

Edinburgh’s Argentina full-back Emiliano Boffelli has suffered a fresh injury setback with the new season in its infancy.

The Pumas star was named on the bench for the Scottish outfit’s United Rugby Championship opener against Leinster at the Hive Stadium.

But the 29-year-old was forced to withdraw from the 23 before kick-off after a recurrence of a back issue which restricted him to just five starts for Edinburgh last season.

Boffelli returned from the Rugby World Cup, where he helped Argentina to the semi-finals and played in the bronze final against England, with a foot injury which kept him out until December.

He returned as a replacement in the two festive URC derbies against Glasgow and started four successive matches for Edinburgh through January and the Six Nations period before his back flared up and kept him out for nearly two months.

Boffelli did return for one more game against Cardiff in late April but after suffering back spasms which forced him out of Edinburgh’s URC games against Stormers and Sharks in South Africa, he had a procedure on his back which ended his season.

Despite returning to full training in recent weeks and playing 40 minutes in a pre-season warm-up against Gloucester, he will now be sent for further specialist assessment.

“I think for me it's more of a worry about the individual,” said Edinburgh head coach Sean Everitt, speaking after his side’s 31-33 defeat by Leinster.

“The individual comes first at Edinburgh, so we just hope that it's not too serious and that he gets over this issue that he's been struggling with for some time now.

“It hasn't only been the last 12 months, it's been probably over the last 24 months. He’ll be seeing the experts next week and then we'll take it from there. He’s definitely a no for South Africa.”

Edinburgh fly to South Africa on Saturday to prepare for a tough double-header of URC fixturse at altitude against the Bulls in Pretoria next Saturday, followed by the Lions in Johannesburg a week later.

They are already without young Scotland full-back Harry Paterson for a couple more weeks as he recovers from a cut to his ankle sustained while closing the glass door of a sauna.

“Unfortunately, the cut on his heel turned a bit nasty,” Everitt reported last week.

Centre Matt Currie, who was forced off after 28 minutes of Friday’s defeat with a hamstring injury, has been included in a 29-man touring party.

A last-minute try by Currie’s replacement, Matt Scott, earned Edinburgh a second losing bonus point against a Leinster team missing a dozen frontline Ireland internationals.

Everitt insists his side can still be optimistic of beating tough opponents in the Republic despite Friday’s opening-night stumble.

“Success on this trip will be beating the Bulls at Loftus and beating the Lions at Ellis Park and we set ourselves those goals,” he added.

“We want to achieve high and for us to be able to finish where we want to finish, those are the teams we've got to beat. We learned from our trip to South Africa last year that it cost us dearly. We came home from both games with no points.

“Last year we played against Leinster and everyone called Leinster a B team at that stage. We got no points out of it (a 36-27 defeat). This time we got two and if we can bring home eight, that would be fantastic for us.”