Fit-again Alex Mitchell set to play his first match in 140 days

Absent England No9 Alex Mitchell is poised to play his first rugby match in 140 days after being named on the Northampton bench for Saturday’s Gallagher Premiership fixture at home to Gloucester.

Mitchell's last outing was England’s July 13 tour-ending game away to the All Blacks in Auckland and he would have flown home from New Zealand feeling on top of the world following a stellar season where he became Steve Borthwick’s first-choice Test scrum-half and a Premiership title winner with the Saints.

The 27-year-old was originally set to begin his 2024/25 campaign against Bedford in Northampton’s final pre-season outing on September 13. He had been named in the starting team but was a no-show come kick-off and has been marked absent for club and country in the 11 weeks since then until now.

Northampton were initially vague on when Mitchell’s comeback might be, director of rugby Phil Dowson saying after the September 28 win over Exeter: “He has had scans, he has had some treatment and we are just waiting to see if that treatment is sufficient to get him going again.

“It’s wait and see at the moment. There is genuinely no timeline because it could be anything at the moment. It’s up in the air so it’s hard to make a short-term plan or a long-term plan when you don’t have that information.”

Mitchell’s lay-off kicked into the international window, leaving Borthwick to name Ben Spencer as the starting nine against New Zealand and Australia and then Jack van Poortvliet as the starter versus South Africa and Japan. Harry Randall provided the bench cover for all four matches.

England’s Autumn Nation Series ended last Sunday and Mitchell will now start his Northampton comeback six days later as a sub behind Tom James.

Borthwick’s Test side endured a difficult November, winning just one of their four matches, and there will be plenty of interest in how Mitchell goes in his comeback with the Guinness Six Nations opener away to Ireland just nine weeks away on February 1.