Tom Curry faces recovery, eyes Autumn return for England

Tom Curry has undergone wrist surgery on a long-standing ligament injury and is expected to miss the start of Sale Sharks’ season, though he could be available for England’s Autumn Nations Series.

The 27-year-old flanker had a pre-planned operation on ligament after the British & Irish Lions tour. The surgery is expected to keep him out for the first matches of the Premiership season, including Sale’s opener against Gloucester on September 25.

Sale’s director of rugby, Alex Sanderson, said that while Curry is unlikely to feature early in the club season, there’s an “outside chance” he will be fit to play in England’s November fixtures versus Australia, Fiji, New Zealand, and Argentina.

“His return to play sits him somewhere around the autumn internationals,” said Sale’s director of rugby Alex Sanderson.

“You are more likely to see him in an England shirt than you are a Sale shirt. But you never know. He has a habit of defying comeback dates and what surgeons say. He’s on good form, healing well, dead positive.”

Curry has been resilient, continuing to play for the Lions through wrist pain and adapting with special casts. He acknowledged the challenge of playing under those conditions and emphasized that catching balls was particularly difficult under heavy protection.

“I had the surgery four weeks ago, just repairing a ligament which was gone,” said Curry.

“I had to go back and repair that.

“It was alright to manage. I had a local anaesthetic on the Saturday so you actually couldn’t feel it (during the match). It was more the Monday to Friday.

“We had this cast which we had to change in Sydney, because we realised that I wasn’t actually catching many balls.

"We had this thick one that covered my palm and it was really tough because I had to catch it with my fingertips. I remember playing in the Argentina game and I kept dropping it.”