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Martin Johnson faces an anxious wait to discover if Simon Shaw will miss the start of the RBS Six Nations after injuring his wrist and knee in London Wasps' 34-8 hammering at Leicester.
The England team manager names his 32-strong squad for the tournament on Wednesday and having seen his plans for last autumn's Tests wrecked by injury, he could now be robbed of the Wasps strong man for the opener against Wales on 6 February.
Shaw (below) is to undergo scans on the wrist he damaged and the knee he hyper-extended that forced him off during the second half of the only Guinness Premiership match to beat the snow over the weekend.
The 36-year-old proved on the Lions tour to South Africa last summer that he remains a man apart in English rugby - a player able to bully the opposition in the rucks and mauls and add ball-handling skills which are vital if England are to develop a multi-phase game.
The 6ft 9ins lock, who missed the start of the season due to a foot injury sustained in South Africa, had a bruising personal battle with Leicester's Louis Deacon, who is the man standing by to fill the void created by an injury to the Wasps veteran. Tony Hanks, the Wasps director of rugby, said: "I'm not going to try and second guess the results of Simon's scan because I thought scrum-half Joe Simpson would be out for a month [with a shoulder injury] and it turned out to be up to 12 weeks.
"I hope it's just a case of checking that there isn't a problem and he was going to be rested for Thursday's match with Roma any way, under the Elite Player Squad agreement."
The doubts over Shaw have increased the gloom surrounding Wasps after they were destroyed in the scrum by a Leicester pack that helped push Dan Cole's claims as a possible England tight-head in the Six Nations.
Wasps' problems up front were compounded by a yellow card for loose-head prop Tim Payne. With Sale's Andrew Sheridan ruled out of the Six Nations by a dislocated shoulder, Payne is England's most experienced alternative and Hanks believes his player's Test chances have not been harmed by the club's scrum crisis.
Hanks said: "We have had a rotten seven days with our set-pieces against two of the best scrums in the Premiership - Newcastle and Leicester. Tim is a proven international prop and takes what happens to our scrum very personally but this is a collective problem, not something that is down to any individual and if we had been having problems all season then I would be worried. However, go back a couple of weeks and we did very well in the scrum against Harlequins and a highly rated Bayonne side.
"Tim proved with the Lions when he went out as a replacement and during the November Tests with England, he can perform on the big stage."
Meanwhile, Johnson looks certain to leave Wasps fly-half Danny Cipriani in the Saxons squad on Wednesday, preferring to recall Leicester's fit-again Toby Flood as the alternative No10 to Jonny Wilkinson.
On Thursday night, Wilkinson will be back in England when he lines up for French side Toulon against Saracens at Vicarage Road in the Amlin Challenge Cup.
