\n<\/p>\n
Northampton fly-half Fin Smith is suffering with a calf strain that may put him out of England’s Six Nations opener against Wales on 7 February.<\/b><\/p>\n
The 23-year-old withdrew from the Saints line-up to face Bordeaux-Begles on Sunday and is awaiting the results of a scan on the injury.<\/p>\n
“We’re still waiting to see how long that is from a scan point of view,” said Northampton director of rugby Phil Dowson.<\/p>\n
“It’s probably minimum two weeks, but with a muscle injury it’s hard to give a timeline beyond that.<\/p>\n
“It’s not months and months and he’s not going to be back this weekend, so somewhere in between that.”<\/p>\n
England take on Wales in three and a half weeks, with their Six Nations squad set to be named next week.<\/p>\n
After the opening round of action, England travel to Scotland on 14 February and then take on Ireland at Twickenham on 21 February before the Six Nations’ rest week.<\/p>\n
Smith came off the bench in the opening-round defeat by Ireland in last year’s competition and was promoted to the starting XV for the remaining four matches of England’s campaign.<\/p>\n
Steve Borthwick’s side finished second in a hugely encouraging campaign, and Smith won selection for the British and Irish Lions tour of Australia over the summer.<\/p>\n
However, while Smith endured a disappointing time with the Lions, unable to exert pressure on Finn Russell for a Test spot, George Ford impressed in England’s Tests against Argentina and the United States.<\/p>\n
Ford was preferred during the autumn, starting at 10 in victories over Australia, New Zealand and Argentina, while Smith, unable to offer Marcus Smith’s versatility, was restricted to a win over Fiji and the fringes of the matchday 23.<\/p>\n
“It is hard to take,” Smith told BBC Radio Northampton’s Saints Show in December.<\/p>\n
“I have absolutely loved how good it feels to wear the England 10 shirt; having that taken away from you does hurt.”<\/p>\n
Frenchman Anthony Belleau, signed from Clermont Auvergne in the summer, filled in for Smith in the defeat by Bordeaux-Begles and has adapted quickly to life with Saints.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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Northampton fly-half Fin Smith is suffering with a calf strain that may put him out of England’s Six Nations opener against Wales on 7 February. The 23-year-old withdrew from the Saints line-up to face Bordeaux-Begles on Sunday and is awaiting the results of a scan on the injury. “We’re still waiting to see how long<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5899,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5898","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rugby"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5898","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5898"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5898\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5899"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}