'There was still enough to cling on to the PCL... It's looking like nine to ten months'

Jack Willis has returned to the gym this week as he continues his rehabilitation for the knee injury suffered during the Guinness Six Nations.

The flanker recently released the latest installment of his mini-documentary The Rebuild 2.0, where he said the news was “as good as we could have asked for realistically” following surgery on the multiple injuries his knee sustained.

“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,” the current RPA players’ player of the year said.

“It’s looking like nine to ten months which sounds like a very long time – and it is a long time – but it could have been a year, so I have taken that as a positive immediately and started ticking down the days.”

As Willis continues to step up his rehab, he shared photos on social media on Thursday of himself returning to the gym with his knee still in a brace. The 24-year-old also posted the caption “Feels good to be back in the gym, getting stuck into my rehab! Excited to see how the knee progresses over the coming weeks!”

The Wasps' forward suffered the injury in the second round of this year’s Guinness Six Nations, when he was crocodile rolled by Italy’s Sebastian Negri only minutes after coming on as a substitute. He also managed to score a try in that time before succumbing to his injury.

The sight of Willis writhing in pain on the Twickenham turf sparked discussions over the Laws of the breakdown and also led to calls for crocodile rolls to be outlawed from the game, although they technically already should be as it causes the ‘roller’ to go off their feet at the ruck.