'This ones cut me through' - Billy Vunipola reacts to latest injury setback
Billy Vunipola's is due to have surgery on his broken arm on Tuesday and he's taken to social media before the operation.
The England and Saracens number 8 broke his arm for the third time in 10 months, picking up the latest injury in Sarries Heineken Champions Cup 13-3 away win over Glasgow Warriors on Sunday.
Vunipola broke his right arm against the Ospreys in January and suffered the same injury again on England’s summer tour to South Africa and had a plate inserted to try and solve the problem.
This time it's his left arm that he's broken and writing on Instagram Vunipola said "I’ll be back, I won’t be bigger I won’t be better I’ll just be back! This ones cut me though."
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The 25-year-old made an appearance off the bench against London Irish at the end of April, but the luckless Vunipola tweaked a hamstring in training after that. He finally made his first start since that Ospreys game during Saracens Premiership 57-33 semi-final win over Wasps, however only lasted a half, due to a recurrence of the hamstring problem. He did recover in time to help Saracens to their third domestic title in four years starting the final against Exeter.
That was enough for Eddie Jones to immediately hand Vunipola the number 8 jersey for the South Africa tour, the first Test in Johannesburg was just his second international start for England since the 2016 Autumn internationals. But injury was yet again around the corner, the second Test in Bloemfontein saw him re-fracture his arm, ending his tour.
This latest injury leaves England scrambling around for options at number 8, with Nathan Hughes set for a ban following his scuffle with Glouceser's Lewis Ludlow and subsequent tweeting during his original disciplinary hearing.
Bath backrow Zach Mercer is likely to get a chance. Mercer will benefit from game-time in the position at club level following Toby Faletau's arm break.
Yesterday Saracens said that Billy Vunipola's brother Mako was still being assessed over his calf injury while lock Nick Isiekwe is also a doubt with a specialist set to determine how long his ankle will take to heal and if surgery is going to be needed to get him back into action.
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I have heard it asked if RA is essentially one of the part owners and I suppose therefor should be on the other side of these two parties. If they purchased the rebels and guaranteed them, and are responsible enough they incur Rebels penalties, where is this line drawn? Seems rough to have to pay a penalty for something were your involvement sees you on the side of the conned party, the creditors. If the Rebels directors themselves have given the club their money, 6mil worth right, why aren’t they also listed as sitting with RA and the Tax office? And the legal threat was either way, new Rebels or defunct, I can’t see how RA assume the threat was less likely enough to warrant comment about it in this article. Surely RA ignore that and only worry about whether they can defend it or not, which they have reported as being comfortable with. So in effect wouldn’t it be more accurate to say there is no further legal threat (or worry) in denying the deal. Unless the directors have reneged on that. > Returns of a Japanese team or even Argentinean side, the Jaguares, were said to be on the cards, as were the ideas of standing up brand new teams in Hawaii or even Los Angeles – crazy ideas that seemingly forgot the time zone issues often cited as a turn-off for viewers when the competition contained teams from South Africa. Those timezones are great for SR and are what will probably be needed to unlock its future (cant see it remaining without _atleast _help from Aus), day games here are night games on the West Coast of america, were potential viewers triple, win win. With one of the best and easiest ways to unlock that being to play games or a host a team there. Less good the further across Aus you get though. Jaguares wouldn’t be the same Jaguares, but I still would think it’s better having them than keeping the Rebels. The other options aren’t really realistic 25’ options, no. From reading this authors last article I think if the new board can get the investment they seem to be confident in, you keeping them simply for the amount of money they’ll be investing in the game. Then ditch them later if they’re not good enough without such a high budget. Use them to get Jaguares reintergration stronger, with more key players on board, and have success drive success.
Go to commentsYeah, and ours is waaay bigger than yours. Just as you's get a semi…oh hold on that never happens
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