Tom Curry to delay surgery until after Lions tour
Sale Sharks flanker Tom Curry will have to play through the pain barrier this summer as he has postponed wrist surgery until after the Lions tour.
Curry limped out of Sale's 44-34 defeat by Leicester Tigers last Friday night with a hamstring injury but a subsequent scan revealed that the 26-year-old only suffered a grade 1D tear. That is likely to preclude his involvement in Friday's key play-off match-up against Bristol Bears but will not affect his participation with the Lions.
Yet both he and hooker Luke Cowan-Dickie, who also received a Lions call-up last week, are in the wars and director of rugby Alex Sanderson revealed that 'superhuman' Curry will have to go under the knife when he gets back from Australia. 'The wrist injury is a ligament and he will need an operation at some point, but he is clearly able to manage whatever pain he is experiencing at the moment,' Sanderson said. 'It is not something that is stopping him playing or managing his training time. The Lions are aware of the wrist problem and he will have an operation after the tour.
'He had to play through to know he could and the specialist was happy that the injury is manageable for the superhuman he is. The alternative was to have an operation now and miss the remaining games and the first two of the Lions tour. That wasn't a solution because of the competition being so high for his position and that is why he had to see if he could manage it. I am really happy he is able to do that.
'He didn't want to come off [against Leicester]. I said, 'Look, Tom, if we had thought at the start of the season that you'd play 20-odd games and be in the form you're in, we would have taken that'. You have to take a step back and take him with you, to reflect on what has been – already – a great season for him.'
Cowan-Dickie, who like Curry has a complicated injury history, also appeared to hurt his already heavily strapped knee in the process of scoring a try at Welford Road. It may mean he is rested by Sanderson against Bristol in which third play fourth in a shoot-out for a play-off place. 'He was one of the ones who got scanned and he was one of the ones who came back mainly clean – but not entirely clean and I don't want to go into the details of it,' Sanderson said. 'The whole right chain of his leg has been experiencing niggles over the last two or three weeks, from his knee to his hamstring, his calf and his toe.
'He's changed his gait; the biomechanics of his running gait. It's complex. There's a necessity and an understanding about what we need to do which is best for Luke, to ensure that we don't break him, because he is liable to break himself if it was down to him. We need to win this game, we know that, but there are another three games after that which we need to win as well.'
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