Leicester prop Dan Cole has emerged as a doubt for England's opening game of the RBS Six Nations against Wales.
Cole missed the 17-8 victory over Bath on Sunday with a foot injury and Tigers director of rugby Richard Cockerill has revealed that he is likely to be out until the end of the month.
That would give the tighthead little time to be ready for England's Millennium Stadium opener on February 6 and he joins team-mate Manu Tuilagi, who has been out since October with a groin injury, as a major doubt for England boss Stuart Lancaster.
"Manu and Coley are probably still end of the month at this point," Cockerill told national newspapers.
"They may well be fit for it (Wales v England) but whether they will be match fit I don't know. We will see."
Cole has not featured for England since last season's Six Nations after having an operation on his neck last summer but has made eight appearances for the Welford Road outfit so far this term.
Tuilagi also missed the autumn internationals along with another Leicester man in Tom Youngs but the latter appears to have put his injury problems behind him and has made nine appearances for the Tigers this season.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article