England: Courtney Lawes ‘still getting symptoms’ after head injury sustained over a month ago

Courtney Lawes is a serious doubt for the start of England’s Autumn Nations Series campaign with the captain still suffering from concussion symptoms.

The 33-year-old has been out of action since September 24 when he went off with a head injury during Northampton Saints’ 41-21 defeat to arch rivals Leicester Tigers.

Lawes duly missed England’s training camp in Jersey ahead of their November Tests against Argentina, Japan, New Zealand and South Africa.

Day by day

“He went to see a specialist this week. He will keep going through the process until he feels better,” Northampton’s director of rugby Phil Dowson said.

“It’s day by day with him. He is biking, lifting weights and running.

“He still gets symptoms, and we cannot move beyond that point until he is OK.

“If he feels brilliant on Monday and he is flying around and Eddie (Jones) wants him to play some minutes, it’s up to him.

“He won’t necessarily need to play for us first because he usually drops right in. It will be interesting to see what Eddie says.”

Dowson was speaking after the Saints’ 45-31 Premiership victory over Bristol Bears, which lifted the Midlanders up to fifth in the table.

“We showed a resilience, and to get to 31-7 at half-time showed how well we played. There was some great finishing,” Northampton’s boss added.

“Alex (Mitchell) was brilliant. He is playing so well, he is so dangerous, he gets the game moving quickly and he will always sniff out a gap.

“He is improving all the time. It was a very mature performance. He has got to keep banging on the (England) door, and I am sure at some stage he will get an opportunity.”

Disappointing day for Bristol

The Saints inflicted Bristol’s fourth league defeat of the season, with the West Country outfit currently in eighth position in the Premiership.

“They are a good side, I love the way they play, but we were losing ball that gave them easy ins,” head coach Pat Lam said.

“31-7 at half-time it was not looking good. We had to believe and work our way back, but a couple more turnovers made the job harder.

“We had a lot of opportunities that we blew. We were chasing the whole game, but a lot of it was us gifting Saints opportunities and we paid the price for it.

“We gave them possession that they didn’t need to have. We have to dust ourselves off, get back up and go again.

“All we can control is what we do, and we had a lot of opportunities in that second half.”

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