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Lood de Jager has bent metal shoulder pins, yet Steve Diamond wants him to feature in Premiership title race
By Chris Jones
Sale boss Steve Diamond has revealed that World Cup-winning lock Lood de Jager has bent the metal pins inserted in one of his shoulders but may still escape further surgery that would rule him out for three months
De Jager, who underwent major surgery on both shoulders in 2019, suffered his latest injury in the Sale win last weekend over Leicester and his treatment will be the subject of a crucial discussion later on Friday between the Premiership club’s specialist and the expert who operated on de Jager in South Africa.
Diamond insists that de Jager could be back in time to play with Sale in the Gallagher Premiership play-off semi-finals on the weekend of October 10, but the specialists will have the final say and surgery may yet be the verdict.
The Sale director of rugby said: “The operations that Lood has had have been massively successful and the amount of stress that went through that shoulder against Leicester was such that it bent the pins in his shoulder.
“I'm looking it at it as laymen but if I was looking it as an engineer then if I have something slightly bent and the machine still works then the machine goes out. If something is bent and the machine doesn’t work then you have to repair it. I'm hoping the surgeon looks at it like me but I'm not a surgeon!
"A lot of people do play with bent pins (after surgery). I have got pins in my legs that have bent after the event and apparently if you are a welder and you weld two pieces then the weld is the strongest point and it appears that is what has happened to Lood.”
While de Jager is out of Sunday’s home match with Bath, England flanker Tom Curry is expected to be declared fit after his head knock while hooker Akker van der Merwe is having treatment on an ankle injury that is causing some concern and led to the return of Rob Webber from Jersey on a short-term contract.
Meanwhile, Diamond is backing the Rugby Football Union’s disciplinary system despite recent complaints about Owen Farrell’s five-game ban being too lenient and Bristol’s Pat Lam insisting players must be able to protect themselves after Siale Piutau was banned for three games.
Diamond said: “If you go 'guilty guv' and don’t have any previous, then you get a reduction and that is fair. The system has to stay as it is or you're going to have anarchy. You have to grin and bear it and the Bristol and Worcester sending offs have become a bit of tit for tat.
"If you swing a punch, then expect a six-week reduced to three weeks ban. Nine and half times out of ten the RFU have got it right - and I've had more run-ins with them than anybody.”
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Latest Comments
The only benefit of the draft idea is league competitiveness. There would be absolutely no commercial value in a draft with rugby’s current interest levels.
I wonder what came first in america? I’m assuming it’s commercial aspect just built overtime and was a side effect essentially.
But the idea is not without merit as a goal. The first step towards being able to implement a draft being be creating it’s source of draftees. Where would you have the players come from? NFL uses college, and players of an age around 22 are generally able to step straight into the NFL. Baseball uses School and kids (obviously nowhere near pro level being 3/4 years younger) are sent to minor league clubs for a few years, the equivalent of the Super Rugby academies. I don’t think the latter is possible legally, and probably the most unethical and pointless, so do we create a University scene that builds on and up from the School scene? There is a lot of merit in that and it would tie in much better with our future partners in Japan and America.
Can we used the club scene and dispose of the Super Rugby academies? The benefit of this is that players have no association to their Super side, ie theyre not being drafted elshwere after spending time as a Blues or Chiefs player etc, it removes the negative of investing in a player just to benefit another club. The disadvantage of course is that now the players have nowhere near the quality of coaching and each countries U20s results will suffer (supposedly).
Or are we just doing something really dirty and making a rule that the only players under the age of 22 (that can sign a pro contract..) that a Super side can contract are those that come from the draft? Any player wanting to upgrade from an academy to full contract has to opt into the draft?
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You’ve got the perfect structure to run your 1A and 1B on a quota of club representation by Province. Have some balance/reward system in place to promote and reward competitiveness/excellence. Say each bracket has 12 teams, each province 3 spots, given the Irish Shield winner once of the bottom ranked provinces spots, so the twelve teams that make up 1A are 4 from Leinster, 3 each from Connacht and Munster, and 2 from Ulster etc. Run the same rule over 1B from the 1A reults/winner/bottom team etc. I’d imagine IRFU would want to keep participation to at least two teams from any one province but if not, and there was reason for more flexibility and competitveness, you can simply have other ways to change the numbers, like caps won by each province for the year prior or something.
Then give those clubs sides much bigger incentive to up their game, say instead of using the Pro sides for the British and Irish Cup you had going, it’s these best club sides that get to represent Ireland. There is plenty of interest in semi pro club cup competitions in europe that Ireland can invest in or drive their own creation of.
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