Gloucester Rugby injury latest ahead of Northampton Saints: Tomos Williams, Charlie Atkinson, Gareth Anscombe

Fly-half Charlie Atkinson is unavailable for Gloucester’s trip to defending champions Northampton Saints on Saturday after injuring his ankle in Friday night’s defeat to Exeter Chiefs in the Premiership Rugby Cup.

Atkinson was seen leaving Kingsholm in a space boot after the 31-7 defeat to Chiefs and director of rugby of rugby George Skivington confirmed he has injured his ankle and they are seeking an expert opinion. Speaking on Tuesday, he said: “Charlie's off today just getting some scans so we can work out exactly what's wrong but he won't be available for a couple of weeks. He just got caught in a bad tackle after a line break. I'm cautious to say it doesn't look horrendous because I'll get the results later. I think it's significant enough but not hopefully you know too traumatic.

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“He's been great. It would be unfortunate if he does have to miss a decent spell out because he's growing into it nicely. I think Friday night is probably a game he'd like to forget anyway. But apart from that, I think he's done a great job. He's been coming off the bench for 20 minutes, 30 minutes and playing really, really well. He's on a good trajectory.”

The good news is Wales fly-half Gareth Anscombe has returned from international duty fit and healthy having started in the number 10 jersey for his country in defeats to Fiji and Australia before being left out against South Africa on selection grounds.
The good news for the Cherry and White’s strength in depth in the key position is George Barton has also just returned from injury and will likely get some game time in the upcoming Challenge Cup.

Anscombe’s Welsh international teammates Max Llewellyn, Josh Hathaway and new cap Freddie Thomas are all back at Kingsholm and available for selection along with Argentina duo Santi Carreras and Matias Alemanno to bolster the squad this weekend.
Skivington confirmed that he has mapped out time off for all his international players to ensure they don’t fatigue throughout the season.

Gloucester now have significant competition for places in their midfield with former Scotland star Chris Harris returning from injury last weekend against Exeter and Seb Atkinson ready to come back this week. Skivington said: “Seb could have played last weekend but it's always about finding that balance of when someone's coming back. So he's fine now, but he took a bang against Leicester in the Prem and has been recovering.”

Skivington also provided an update on talismanic scrum-half Tomos Williams who injured his shoulder against Fiji while on international duty with Wales. He said: “Tommy's not one I could give you an exact game he's going to come back on but he hasn't had to have anything done [surgery] or anything like, that shoulder has just taken a good rattle. But it's pretty positive, I mean Tommy's in the building, he's in good spirits, he's not training or anything like that, but I'm hoping we're talking about weeks or a month rather than anything more than that. So it's more positive than negative, but it's not as quick as I'd like obviously.”