England were dealt a blow yesterday when it was revealed that captain Lewis Moody would miss Saturday’s World Cup opener against Argentina because of a knee injury.
Moody sustained medial ligament damage in a warm-up match against Wales on Aug. 6. He had been scheduled to return to training yesterday, but England manager Martin Johnson made the call to rule his skipper out of the match on the advice of his medical staff.
“Lewis won’t play at the weekend. He is not quite ready to go today,” Johnson said. “We hoped he would be fit to start training, but he is not quite there. It is quite a simple decision at the minute to hold him back another week. The medics and the fitness guys take him through a progression of training and we hoped it would all be ready to go today, but he is just a little bit short.”
Mike Tindall is the favorite to inherit the captaincy, having done so in Moody’s absence during the Six Nations and in England’s last two warm-up games against Wales and Ireland.
James Haskell, meanwhile, will probably take Moody’s place at No. 7.
Moody first injured his right knee in January while playing for his club side Bath and the injury forced him out of England’s triumphant Six Nations campaign.
The veteran flanker suffered a repeat of the injury after Tom Palmer fell on him during a second-half lineout in the 23-19 win over Wales at Twickenham last month.
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