Warren Gatland and the Wales camp have been hit with the news that Gethin Jenkins could miss the five weeks of the Six Nations with a knee injury.
The prop, who has been one of Wales’ stand-out performers over the past few years, picked up the knock during Cardiff’s Heineken Cup victory over Racing Metro at the weekend.
The setback compounds the facts that both fly-half Rhys Priestland and back-row forward Dan Lydiate are likely to miss the tournament opener against Ireland on Sunday, February 4.
Speaking yesterday, Gatland gave a thorough run-down of his injury catalogue.
“Gethin is struggling and could be out for four to five weeks," he explained. "Rhys will be struggling for the first game. We're assessing him day by day. Dan Lydiate is touch and go but we're hoping Jamie Roberts will be OK."
"Gethin is a huge loss for us for potentially the first two games of the tournament. He's been playing exceptionally well for the Blues in the last month.
"He's a world class player. He's got a very good rugby brain and is able to asses things on the field. He's almost like a coach on the field because you get a lot of information from him at half-time, what's going right or wrong, tactically where we need to change.
"Rhys was probably the find, if not the best, fly-half at the World Cup. He really does fit the type of game we want to play. His kicking game and vision are excellent. He stretches opposition defences as well because he's not afraid to run.
"There's a very good balance to his game. You can't underestimate the space he created for our midfield at the World Cup. He was one of the reasons we saw some really big performances from Jamie Roberts, Jon Davies and Scott Williams.
“He will be a big loss for us but there's experience to come in with James Hook and we may look at Gavin Henson in that position too."
