A stirring weekend of Premiership semi-final rugby has left England's head coach, Stuart Lancaster, feeling almost as battered and bruised as the combatants. A heavy-duty final between Saracens and Northampton at Twickenham on 31 May will rob him of a third of his probable squad for his side's first Test against New Zealand in Auckland the following weekend, while Mike Brown, Billy Twelvetrees and Dylan Hartley still have fitness battles to overcome before the three-Test series.
Amid all the positive vibes generated by two thunderous semis, both of them excellent adverts for the professional club game, the tweaked hamstring suffered by Brown in Harlequins' defeat to Saracens is the most pressing concern. The full-back has achieved so much lately – he has won the awards for player of the Six Nations and domestic player of the season – that anything is possible but he will need to make a swift recovery to feature against the All Blacks on 7 June.
If his rehabilitation is even slightly protracted it will leave Lancaster with another problem to add to his lengthy list. His two other fsenior full-backs, Alex Goode and Ben Foden, are both involved in the Premiership final, leaving the callow Anthony Watson of Bath. Starting a Test against New Zealand with Watson at 15 – he has started only one Premiership game at full-back this year – the similarly youthful George Ford at 10 and a sixth-choice hooker in Harlequins' Dave Ward would jangle everybody's nerves.
Half of England's potential 44-man squad also still have huge games this weekend, with the obvious risk of further injury. As well as Saracens' Heineken Cup final against Toulon, Northampton and Bath are due to meet in the Amlin Challenge Cup final on Friday, while Wasps have the second leg of their European play-off against Stade Français. No wonder Lancaster is delaying the announcement of his confirmed tour squad until next Monday (26 May), just 24 hours before the rump of the party fly to Auckland.
The remainder – there will be at least 13 of them – will not arrive in New Zealand until 4 June, too late logistically to feature in the opening Test of the three-Test series. An update on Brown and Twelvetrees, who has an ankle ligament problem, will be provided but if both are fit for Auckland it will feel like a bonus. With Northampton's Jim Mallinder revealing Hartley has yet to resume contact training following a fractured shoulder blade and with Bath's Rob Webber also sidelined with a knee injury, Lancaster has significant holes where, ideally, he should have certainty.
The optimist in him is hopeful others can seize their unexpected opportunity. With Brown's availability up in the air, for example, might it be that Leicester's Mathew Tait re-enters the frame? He has not played Test rugby for four injury-plagued years but his talent and resolve have never been in doubt. He was one of the best players in Friday night's thriller at the Gardens and is a rare survivor from England's World Cup final side in 2007.
Lancaster is due to add a further instalment of names to his pre-tour training roster only a dozen or so beaten-up Tigers and Quins will be available to train this week with the 20 players named. Leicester's Ed Slater is pushing increasingly hard for senior recognition, weakened squad or not, while Lancaster will be glad to welcome back his captain Chris Robshaw. Manu Tuilagi, a real handful against Northampton, will be another welcome addition but the midfield combination for Auckland remains a matter of some debate.
Kyle Eastmond did not feature in the last couple of games of Bath's season despite being available and if Twelvetrees misses out, the list of fit specialist inside centres is pretty short without a fit Anthony Allen. Jonathan Joseph will also be named on Monday but it would be inconsistent to pick him ahead of his club-mate Eastmond, a member of the senior EPS squad.
New Zealanders will probably read these bulletins and assume nothing has changed, having grown used to English sides flying south without their strongest sides. By the time the second Test rolls around in Dunedin, however, Owen Farrell, Billy and Mako Vunipola, Alex Goode, Brad Barritt, Chris Ashton, Richard Wigglesworth, Courtney Lawes, Tom Wood, Luther Burrell, Lee Dickson, Hartley and Foden will all potentially be available again.
Between now and next year's World Cup, Dan Cole, Christian Wade, Tom Croft, Alex Corbisiero, Tom Youngs and Jack Nowell will also be back available, with the Armitage brothers still waiting to be recalled from exile. England do not have a shortage of Test-quality depth.
A glance at the possible team-sheet for the first Test reveals just half a dozen regular starters from this season's Six Nations.
Eight of England's theoretical 23 (see panel), will also be playing for their clubs this weekend, just two or three days before the plane departs for New Zealand, having already slogged their way through nine months of rugby. It is interesting that only one Lion – Tuilagi, who has been injured for much of the season – is likely to start against the All Blacks in Auckland.
The rest are either knackered, unavailable in the case of Youngs, or still battling on for their clubs. At some stage, surely, player welfare and scheduling must become better intertwined. Mallinder was even hinting he may have to rest a couple for Friday's Challenge Cup final in Cardiff, which should not have to be the case for a showpiece fixture.
It is a totally understandable stance, though. Wood, man of the match in Friday's pulsating epic, felt the Saints-Tigers game was as intense as anything he had recently experienced and a Saints-Saracens final will be no different. With a Challenge Cup final, a Premiership final and two Tests against the All Blacks awaiting him between now and 21 June, we are about to find out precisely how much punishment Wood and co can physically take.
