Noah Caluori: playing through wrist injury for Saracens
The Saracens back explains why he chose to play on with a torn wrist rather than have immediate surgery, before earning his first England caps.
Noah Caluori played through a torn wrist for most of last season rather than go under the knife straight away, and he has now explained why.
The 19-year-old Saracens back ripped two ligaments off the bone in his right hand in December. A scan during the Six Nations confirmed he needed surgery. He was given a choice: operate immediately and miss the rest of the Premiership campaign, or play on in pain and have the surgery once the season ended.
"During the Six Nations I got a scan on it and it showed that I needed surgery," he said. "They were like, 'you can have surgery now' – I'd torn two bones completely off my scaphoid and lunate … the ligament off those two bones in my hand – 'so you can even have surgery now, which is going to take you out until the last game of the Prem. Or you can fight through it and then just deal with the pain until the end of the season'. I sat down and spoke to the England coaches and Saracens coaches and I came to the conclusion that I'm going to push for this, I'm going to hope that I end up going on tour, I'm going to try the best I can for Saracens, try and help."
He chose to fight through it. Caluori finished the season as joint top try-scorer in the Premiership and earned his first two England caps over the summer.
He has since had the surgery and will miss the start of the new campaign, with the aim of finding his form again before England's four November Tests at Twickenham.
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