England flanker posts major recovery milestone behind the scenes at Wasps

Jack Willis’ recovery from his knee injury has taken another positive step, as the Wasps star has started his rehab without a knee brace.

The England flanker previously said on his mini-documentary series The Rebuild 2.0 that he is expecting to be out for “nine to ten months,” meaning he is still just on the foothills of his recovery process after initially picking up the injury in February.

The 24-year-old has remained buoyant and positive that he is not expected to be out for longer, which many may have expected after seeing him clutch his knee in agony on the Twickenham turf against Italy.

He provided more detail over the extent of the injury in his documentary: “So I have torn my MCL (medial collateral ligament) off the bone at the bottom, torn a bit off the top as well, so I am going to need that fully repaired. Torn both menisci, the medial meniscus from the root one side.

“There was still enough to cling on to the PCL that it meant that they could repair it rather than scrape it out and reconstruct it with a hamstring graft.”

Willis provided a photo on Instagram of himself in the gym without his knee brace alongside three other team mates that are set to miss the rest of the season.

Willis’ fellow England international Joe Launchbury is also absent with a knee injury, while Ryan Mills has missed the entire campaign with a foot injury and Theo Vukasinovic has been out since March with an Achilles injury.

A cursory glance at Wasps’ rehab room will help explain why Lee Blackett’s side have failed to emulate the success they had last season, where they reached the Gallagher Premiership final. Club captain Launchbury and RPA players’ player of the year Willis are just two members of a star-studded injury list.