George North and Ben Te’o set to miss autumn internationals with injuries

The British & Irish Lions team-mates George North and Ben Te’o are both set to miss this autumn’s Test matches after falling victim to top-level rugby’s rising attrition rate. North will be out for six to eight weeks after damaging the posterior cruciate ligament in his left knee while Te’o will be sidelined for at least a month with an ankle problem.

North was injured during Northampton’s heavy European defeat by Saracens on Sunday, having had his summer Lions expedition ended prematurely by a torn hamstring. The 25-year-old Welsh winger will not be fit to resume playing before December but will be relieved to have escaped a potentially season-ending injury.

Te’o, a strong candidate for England’s midfield next month, limped off early in Worcester’s European Challenge Cup win over Brive but is still awaiting a specialist’s verdict on whether he needs an operation. “Ben’s unfortunately got a syndesmosis injury of his ankle,” said Worcester’s head coach, Carl Hogg. “He’s being assessed and will head back down to Cardiff on Monday to see whether he’ll go down a surgical route or whether it’ll be managed conservatively. He’s expected to be out for at least a month but we’ll find out more next week.”

With Billy Vunipola, Jack Nowell and Manu Tuilagi already out of autumn contention England’s head coach, Eddie Jones, is starting to lose a number of powerful ball-carriers before his side’s Tests against Argentina, Australia and Samoa. With another big round of European fixtures to come this weekend there could well be further casualties but Leicester’s head coach, Matt O’Connor, has branded as “obscene” the idea that the permitted number of replacements should be reduced in an attempt to fatigue players and potentially create more space as a consequence.

O’Connor is as concerned as anyone with the early-season spate of injuries but believes a better solution would be to extend the greater flexibility permitted for front-row replacements to all players. “I’d like to see the game go to all subs having the rights front-rowers have got,” said O’Connor.

“Whether it’s a bloke bleeding, or an HIA [head injury assessment] or a rolled ankle I think we have to have that potential so we’re not compromising guys on the field or changing the result of games because of injury. You don’t want rolling subs. You don’t want everyone on the field fresh otherwise you’re just going to have a brutal contest. The game’s getting bigger all the time in terms of the size of the athletes. It makes the bench a little bit more important. The freshness of your squad becomes a factor as well.”

O’Connor believes, however, that this season’s tweaked laws have made coaches even more fixated with keeping the ball in hand and winning the gain-line collisions, which could possibly be affecting injury rates: “I think everyone’s trying to do the same thing. That’s leading to more ball in play and more rugby. It’s positive but there’s a cause and effect around it in relation to the injury numbers. If there’s more ball in play, there are more collisions and that’s going to take a toll at some point.”

Leicester, meanwhile, have strongly backed their back-row forward Mike Williams, who has been cited for charging into a ruck and striking the head/face of the Racing 92 centre Henry Chavancy. “There are 50 or 60 of those [collisions] in a game,” said O’Connor. “We’re in a really dangerous place if that’s going to be the standard of what goes before the judiciary. There’s no intent to harm or injure.”.