Christmas news gets worse for England's coach

Will Greenwood is out of the Six Nations Championship, and the Christmas news gets worse for the England coach, Andy Robinson.

Like Greenwood has done, Gloucester's wing James Simpson-Daniel is to have a shoulder operation next week. Greenwood underwent surgery on his right shoulder on Wednesday.

Initially, the Harlequins centre, who has won 55 caps, was expected to be back in four weeks but last night an England spokesperson said: "Typically, after the operation a player can expect to be back into team training after three months and back to full match play after four months."

England's final match is against Scotland at Twickenham on 19 March so that takes care of Greenwood. As for Simpson-Daniel more will be known after next week's exploratory operation, but Robinson will not be holding his breath.

"It's disappointing to hear of the injuries to these world-class players," said England's head coach.

"It's a cause for concern that there appears to be more rugby injuries at this level."

If there are long faces in the Quins and England camps this morning they are nothing compared to the red faces at Wasps, who have been kicked out of the Powergen Cup for an administrative error which caused them to field an ineligible player against Bristol in the sixth round last weekend.

Hooker Johnny Barrett, who came on for the last 12 minutes of normal time, when Wasps were losing 27-30, and remained for the 20 minutes of extra time to help Wasps beat the National League One side, had appeared earlier in the competition on loan at Henley.

It means Bristol go through to a daunting quarter-final clash against West Country neighbours Gloucester at Kingsholm.

The BBC promptly switched their live coverage from Gloucester to Northampton versus Leeds.

Richard Hill, the Bristol coach, said: "I rang Warren Gatland straight away and had a quick chat with him. I just wanted to tell him that it was nothing to do with us.

"It is a horrible way to go out of the Cup. It is one of those nightmare administrative errors that we all dread. Wasps have our sympathy. Now we have to go up to Kingsholm and make a fist of it, we owe it to Wasps to do that."Wasps are the second club to be thrown out of the competition this season. North Walsham fielded an ineligible player in an earlier round against Stourbridge, with similar consequences.

- THE INDEPENDENT