England and Harlequins are sweating on the fitness of star full-back Mike Brown who underwent a scan on Wednesday for a recurring ankle injury.
Brown picked up the knock a fortnight ago against Wasps and and aggravated it last weekend against Leicester when perhaps it would have been better to rest it.
He has now been ruled out of the coming weekend's away tie with Northampton and is anxiously awaiting the results of Wednesday's scan.
The injury could add to England coach Eddie Jones' injury woes after Billy Vunipola and Manu Tuilagi were ruled out of the November internationals.
Speaking at the Champions Cup launch in Coventry, Harlequins director of rugby John Kingston said: "Mike won't be available this weekend, he aggravated his ankle at the Ricoh, came back and played last week, and aggravated it again.
"It's clearly something that's not quite right and therefore, after he's re-aggravated it, it's better to leave it a bit and give it some more time.
"He has been away with England for two or three days and they have done some treatment on it. He is not fit so we will get a scan and see what we are dealing with. He left in a boot on Saturday and it was pretty swollen. It was worse than it had been on the Sunday against Wasps. It is too swollen today so we need a really accurate assessment of what is going on in there."
Meanwhile, Kingston allayed fears that this could be the beginning of the end of Brown's international career, backing the 32-year-old to stake his claim for a starting berth at the 2019 Rugby World Cup in Japan.
"He wants to be involved in the World Cup – and there's no reason he can't be. It would be a big mistake to write Mike Brown off," he said.
On a completely different note, Kingston raised concerns that Jones may be exposing the precocious talent Marcus Smith to the international arena prematurely.
The 18-year-old trained with the national squad as an 'apprentice' earlier this week and Kingston said: "I would be very surprised if Eddie thought Marcus is ready to play international rugby quite yet. He's played three of four league games. I understand he has him in the squad, but I'd be very surprised if he involves Marcus in any internationals in the near future."
The post Brown sweating on ankle injury appeared first on Planet Rugby.