Six Nations 2019: Owen Farrell ‘confident’ of injury return in time for Ireland vs England

Owen Farrell is confident he’ll be fully fit to lead England into the Six Nations despite the fly-half yet to return to full training after undergoing a minor operation on an injured thumb, so much so that Eddie Jones decided not to bring in extra cover at No 10.

The 27-year-old was a late withdrawal from Saracens’ Heineken Champions Cup victory over Glasgow last weekend, with a decision taken for Farrell to go under the knife on Saturday morning to have a damaged ligament repaired in the hope that it would fully recover in time for the Six Nations curtain-raiser against Ireland on 2 February.

But with England set to fly out to Portugal on Wednesday for a week-long training camp, Farrell expects to be back in full training before the end of the week, handing England head coach Jones a boost.

“It’s good,” Farrell said at the Six Nations launch on Wednesday in south London. “I had something small done to it last week but should be back training towards the end of this week.

“It was gradual I think, something small. I’m confident I’ll play.”

Farrell’s confidence was enough to convince Jones not to hand an England recall to Danny Cipriani, with the Gloucester fly-half still very much on the outside looking in.

But having a fully-fit Farrell available for the tournament opener against the defending champions is pivotal to England’s hopes of regaining the title, and Jones was pleased to report that despite his squad suffering a few knocks over the final European group round last weekend, they are looking in good shape ahead of the Six Nations.

“We’re flying out to Portugal today,” Jones added. “If we were to train today we’d probably have 34 of 36 players train so a couple are still a little bit sore from the weekend.”

Wasps’ back-row Brad Shields is the other player in Jones’ 36-man squad currently nursing a minor knock, with Bath centre Jonathan Joseph added on Tuesday after making his return from a nine-month foot injury last weekend.

However, despite the welcomed returns of the Vunipola brothers, plus the likes of Wasps captain Joe Launchbury and Leicester prop Ellis Genge, Jones does not expect to have a fully fit squad for long.

“The one thing consistent about international rugby is the inconsistency of your squad, and so you get your squad, you work out how you’re going to play, you work out who you’re going to play, you work out who you can play stronger together, and you take it from there,” he added.

“Every player that gets selected to play for England we know they’re motivated, we know they’re 100 per cent committed to do their best for England, so we’re just working with a different group of players. Obviously it’s great to have blokes like Billy and Mako and Joe Launchbury and Ellis Genge, they’re good players, but the guys who played for us in the autumn did well.”

England will spend the next week training in the warmer climes of the Algarve, just 15 minutes from where Ireland will be preparing for the Six Nations. And in light of the recent spy-gate scandal that engulfed Leeds United boss Marcelo Bielsa, Jones was happy to give Ireland counterpart Joe Schmidt something to think about.

“They’re in Portugal and we’re in Portugal, so I’m going to go to the airport now and buy a pair of binoculars,” joked Jones, though Schmidt was happy to see the funny side of it.

“Eddie just passed me before and said ‘right, let’s get ready for a few grenades’,” said the New Zealander. “He is always incredibly hard to read – you don’t know if it’s a comment to distract you or it is something he is genuinely thinking about.”