Injury blow for Chiefs

Exeter Chiefs scrum-half Dave Lewis will sit out the club’s remaining two pre-season friendlies after injuring an elbow in last week’s win over Cardiff Blues.

The 25-year-old sustained the blow during the second half of Exeter’s 24-17 victory at the BT Sports Cardiff Arms Park – and has since undergone a scan to determine the full extent of the damage caused.

Already head coach Rob Baxter has confirmed Lewis will sit out tomorrow’s trip to Ulster and the forthcoming friendly against Championship side Worcester Warriors on August 29 – and is hopeful the former Gloucester No.9 will not be sidelined for too much longer.

“The initial prognosis is there is no fracture, so it’s going to be a bit of a wait and see,” Baxter said. “He (Lewis) had an MRI scan on Monday night and we’re obviously hoping it won’t show too much ligament damage. If that’s the case, it will just be a case of getting him rehabbed, re-strengthening the joint and see how we go.

“He’s certainly not going to feature this weekend against Ulster and he’s unlikely to feature against Worcester. We’ll just have to monitor him after the Worcester game on a week-by-week basis.”

After starting the first four games of last season on the bench, Lewis established himself as first choice and went on to make 24 starts.

However, with the experienced Haydn Thomas and Will Chudley in the squad, Baxter has plenty of cover for the England Saxons player.

And he said there are also several youngsters in the academy, such as Stu Townsend and Jack Oulton, who can provide back-up if required.

“We’ve got a very strong academy group of scrum-halves so it is a position where we’re blessed with some strength in depth,” he said.

“We’d like Dave to be fit, he played a lot of rugby for us last year, but you always tend to pick up one or two injuries in pre-season.”