Darcy Graham injury fears laid bare as Scotland and Edinburgh man out for 'long term'

Everitt reveals date with surgeon looms for luckless winger

Darcy Graham may not be back in an Edinburgh jersey this season, the club’s head coach, Sean Everitt, has admitted.

The 26-year-old winger had hoped to return from a quad injury in Scotland’s Six Nations Championship match against England last week, but after sustaining a groin injury in training is now all but certain to have no involvement at all in this year’s tournament. And, while Everitt has not ruled out all hope of seeing the winger in action at club level between now and the summer, he admitted that things were not looking good.

“We’d like to see him in the latter part of the season, but from what I can gather it will be a long-term injury,” the coach said. “We’ve been waiting for him to see the surgeon and get an opinion from the orthopaedics. He hasn’t had the opportunity to see the guy yet and he’ll see him this week.

Edinburgh's Darcy Graham has picked up another injury.

"What's important is that we give Darcy every opportunity to fully recover from the injuries that he's had over the last 12 months. He's really struggled. He's a player that's 26-years-old, so to keep pushing him is probably not going to be ideal for him and his career going forward. We'll give him however long it takes to fully recover from all his niggles that he's struggled with."

Meanwhile, eight members of Scotland’s Six Nations squad have been released to play for Edinburgh against the Ospreys on Friday night. Forwards WP Nel, Javan Sebastian, Glen Young, Sam Skinner and Hamish Watson have been made available for the home URC game, and they are joined by backs Ali Price, Ben Healy and Harry Paterson.

Openside flanker Watson was only called up by national coach Gregor Townsend last week after being a surprise omission from the initial squad for the Championship, and tighthead prop Sebastian dropped out of the squad last week, but the experience that those two offer could nonetheless be vital as the race for the top-eight play-off places heats up. However, given his lack of resources in the second row, Everitt understandably focused on the return of Skinner, who along with Healy came off the bench in Saturday’s Calcutta Cup triumph.

“It certainly does help us, especially in the lock department where both last week and in the previous game we had two out,” Everitt said. “So we’re getting experience back there – Sam Skinner is a seasoned campaigner, played a lot of Test matches, so it’s great to get him back for a game which is important to us here at home. And it’s always good to get Ben Healy back, who played well in the previous game.”

Fifth-placed Edinburgh have won seven games from 10 starts in the URC – one more than the Ospreys – but are only a point ahead of their Welsh rivals because of bonus points. “Bonus points are costing us at the moment,” Everitt accepted. “We're in the top three for line breaks, so obviously there's a completion issue.”