Owen Farrell gave Stuart Lancaster an injury scare on the eve of England's Six Nations get-together as he hobbled off in the first half of Saracens' defeat to Clermont Auvergne.
Saracens set up a European Champions Cup quarter-final meeting with Racing Metro despite a disappointing 18-6 loss at the Stade Marcel-Michelin yesterday.
Of more concern to England head coach Lancaster will be the fitness of Farrell, who hobbled off in the 18th minute after twisting his left knee in a collision with Clermont flanker Julien Bardy.
Farrell is due to meet up with the rest of his England team-mates today, and Saracens director of rugby Mark McCall says the outhalf will be assessed in the coming days before a decision is made on whether he can take part in England’s first Six Nations fixture against Wales.
"I wouldn't want to say right now. It's a new injury and we don't know the extent of it just yet," McCall told the Daily Telegraph when asked whether Farrell would be fit for Cardiff a week on Friday. "It's complicated with knee injuries, sometimes you can do that [walk off] and it's more serious, but we'll get him looked after and we'll know in the next few days."
Lowest-ranked team
Saracens missed Farrell when he came off yesterday as they scraped into the quarter-finals as the lowest-ranked team.
Charlie Hodgson scored two penalties, but missed another and Sarries also failed to score a try. Clermont, whose only defeat in the competition came at Saracens last year, had no such trouble on the attack.
Nick Abendanon and Vincent Debaty scored tries, while Camille Lopez and Brock James were successful with the boot for Clermont, who will host Northampton in the quarter-finals. Whoever wins that match will play either Racing or Sarries in the semi-finals.
It was a day of mixed emotions for McCall, who was happy his team went through despite the defeat.
“Today is disappointing for us,” McCall told BT Sport. “We really felt we had a chance to win and I thought we under-performed in certain areas, particularly when we had the ball.
“But this was a pretty tough group so we are delighted to still be in the competition.”
