Fraser Brown set to miss at least part of Six Nations Championship

FRASER BROWN faces a race against time if he is to be involved in this season’s Six Nations after it was revealed that his neck injury is worse than was originally thought. The Glasgow hooker sustained the injury while playing for Scotland at the start of the month and has been out of action since.

The Warriors are expected to announce a precise prognosis soon. A few days after the injury head coach Danny Wilson said that Brown was expected to be out for a week or so, but earlier today (Wednesday) he accepted that the outlook was less optimistic.

“Fraser has got a neck injury which I’ll be able to say more about on Friday,” Wilson said of his co-captain. “He’s got a couple of results still to come back.

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That was the month that was: December 2020

“But unfortunately he might be a bit longer term than we had hoped. We have to wait until we get a bit more clarity on how long he’s going to be out for.”

With other first-choice players such as Adam Hastings and Tommy Seymour also out through injury, Wilson has limited selection options as he looks forward to Saturday’s PRO14 match against Edinburgh. Richie Gray continues to make progress, however, and should be available, while although the game at Murrayfield will come too early for Leone Nakarawa, the Fijian has now started training with the squad again.

There is further good news for Glasgow in the fact that they have had no more positive Covid tests following the four earlier this month. One of those four unnamed players will be available to play against Edinburgh on Saturday because he did not have any symptoms, and most of the 16 players who had to self-isolate around the same time have also been cleared to play.

However, the other three who tested positive will miss the game at Murrayfield, and so will three other players who have had to self-isolate for a second time. “We’ve had a few boys quite ill after having a positive test,” Wilson added. “One had no symptoms and three were pretty rough.

“Another three haven’t trained for 20 days. They had almost double isolation, as there was a second incident after they were coming out of the first one when they were exposed to another close contact. And the three of them live together, so they had to isolate again.

“Unfortunately, Covid has caused us a few problems, put it that way. But no more positives or anybody else ill at the moment.

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“We’ve had a reasonable week so far,” the coach continued, referring to the return to training of the bulk of the players who had to self-isolate after being involved in the Champions Cup match against Exeter. “It is difficult when you come off a long period when they have been stuck in flats and not been allowed to go out for a run, not allowed to go out to do any weights.

“There was a ten-day period when 24 of them or whatever it was couldn’t do anything at all. It means you have to slowly grade them back in. First grade back in was a session the day before Christmas Eve, and they had a bit of time over Christmas that they needed mentally more than anything.

“They came back in to do a week’s training going into this Edinburgh game. It has been gradual, which is for the safety of the players coming off the back of a period of not doing anything.”

The recovery from Covid apart, the real good news for Glasgow this week has been the decision by Scott Cummings to sign a new contract to stay at Scotstoun. The Warriors needed that sort of boost after the announcement that Adam Hastings will leave at the end of this season, and Wilson suggested that further re-signings or new signings, or possibly both, would be finalised and made public shortly.

“It’s a great story and good news, and there’s more to come,” he said of Cummings’ new deal. “I’ll be able to [elaborate] at the start of next week as we’ll make another announcement.

“But there’s more good news, some signings for the future, and players who see what the future will look like getting out of this rough period. And that’s what you want: you want players who want to be here for the longer term.”