During the dark nights of last winter, Will Stuart was sleepwalking around his house with a ruptured achilles. It was an unusual complication in the England prop’s recovery programme and one which left the national team’s medics with an unexpected problem to solve.
Stuart’s left achilles popped in a scrum during Bath’s victory over Munster in December. He was put on pain-relief gas to numb the sensation. ‘I had to wait two weeks for surgery and that purgatory period is the most annoying bit,’ Stuart told Daily Mail Sport.
‘I had a few nightmares. I sleepwalk occasionally and I managed to sleepwalk with no achilles to the other side of the house. After the operation, the physio insisted I sleep with a boot on or I could re-snap my achilles by sleepwalking into the bathroom!’
It was the beginning of an eight-month nightmare, as Stuart missed the entirety of the Six Nations and the summer. Now the tighthead is back, ready to face the Wallabies on Sunday.
South Africa reinvented rugby’s tactics with their ‘bomb squad’ of front-row forward replacements from the bench. Now England’s equivalent, the ‘pom squad’, is set to be reunited. With Fin Baxter also returning from a long-term foot injury, England can deploy their scrummaging reinforcements from the bench, creating a double punch combination with Ellis Genge and Joe Heyes.
‘We felt really connected as sets of front rows in that previous block,’ said Leicester’s Heyes, who is set to start at tighthead prop with Stuart his reserve. ‘There’s a huge amount of confidence that whoever’s going to come on is going to finish the job or vice versa. It was, “Brilliant, this front row is coming on now”. It’s good to have those boys back. I know they’ve had really challenging journeys with two pretty tough injuries to have.’
Prop Will Stuart is set to return for England against Australia on Sunday following a nightmarish eight-month injury lay-off
England’s ‘Pom Squad’ will be reunited, with Fin Baxter (back row, third from right) also back from injury. ‘There’s a huge amount of confidence that whoever’s going to come on is going to finish the job,’ says Joe Heyes (front row, right)
England will expect to find an upper hand against the Wallabies at the set-piece. Australia’s pack is a different beast without giant lock Will Skelton, meaning the hosts should dominate the power battle. Stuart’s 135kg frame adds significant forward momentum.
‘There’s no secrets,’ added Heyes. ‘In international rugby, seconds can change a game. You have to be switched on all the time. You have to be mentally engaged all the time. There are times at our clubs where all the scrums are going down in training. Here our scrum has been staying up. There’s a huge emphasis on getting into a contest and actually going at each other.’
Throughout the week, rugby’s leading referees have been gathered in Windsor, studying scrum footage ahead of the Nations Championship. There will be a clampdown on loosehead props tucking their shoulders, which can cause the scrum to overbalance and collapse. The sport’s lawmakers want to see more technical accuracy and Stuart’s experience will provide a significant boost.
England train their scrum man-on-man in live sessions, never against a machine to ensure they are prepared as best as possible.
‘The first scrum in training felt quite weird,’ admitted Stuart, who used the time on the sidelines to cut his weight, before returning for Bath at the start of the season.
‘I was pretty head down in the trenches. I geared everything towards getting back fit. I was probably quite insufferable to live with for about five months. My wife made a million cups of tea for me.
‘I thought about getting a scooter but it wouldn’t have been really worth it for me, because I’ve got quite a higgledy-piggledy house. I would have been scooting for two metres before I had to carry it over some steps. Instead, I got a peg leg that you can put on the end of your knee, so I became quite independent quite quickly.
‘You come off the crutches and then they put you in these elevated wedges. They gradually decrease the size of the wedge. As soon as I was back in normal shoes, walking fairly competently, we went out to visit some friends in Kenya which was amazing. Then it was back to the grindstone.
‘As soon as I got through the first scrum and my achilles didn’t explode, I was fine. I had a couple of games in pre-season where I felt like Bambi on ice. Turning 30, I can’t just run out on the pitch and train the house down. It takes me about an hour and a half to get moving. I wanted to get back to that England level. With long-term injuries, the more you play, the more your body gets used to it.’
England will expect to find an upper hand against the Wallabies at the set-piece. The hosts should dominate the power battle and Stuart’s 135kg frame will help
Stuart in action against Australia at Twickenham in November 2024. The 30-year-old says ‘it’s good to be back’
Stuart helped England scrum coach Tom Harrison to analyse the Springbok pack in the summer. South Africa provide the set-piece benchmark for the rest of the world but, even in Stuart’s absence, England’s scrum has been one of their strongest assets this year.
‘I had a few conversations with Tom, especially going into that South Africa Test (which England lost 45-21 after a late flurry of South Africa tries),’ said Stuart. ‘We had a few back and forths about previous scrummaging experiences against Ox Nche or with Thomas du Toit.
‘The main thing that stands out, aside from them being fairly massive men, is that they are just very well drilled. Speaking to Thomas, they’re very cohesive and they work very well as a unit. People look at a prop and think they’re very destructive. But when you have a very cohesive tight five, doing the same thing at the same time, it’s very hard to stop.
‘I think England’s scrum has been an area where they’ve held their own. Tom pretty much let me off the leash for nine months. It’s good to be back now.’
