Saracens and England centre Joel Tomkins is facing three months on the sidelines after suffering a knee injury against the All Blacks.
The 26-year-old former rugby league star, who only made his England debut earlier this month, didn't travel with London club Saracens for the Premiership leaders' 16-9 win away to south-west side Exeter on Saturday.
Afterwards, Saracens director of rugby Mark McCall said Tomkins had been injured in the closing stages of world champions New Zealand's 30-22 win over England at Twickenham last weekend.
"Joel has got a knee injury, and will be out for quite some time, probably three months," McCall explained.
"He picked up the injury in the last five minutes of the game against New Zealand and it is a maximum 12-week injury."
If McCall's diagnosis is correct, Tomkins will be ruled out of at least the opening two rounds of the Six Nations, which starts in February.
His absence will leave England coach Stuart Lancaster, already without injured centres Manu Tuilagi and Brad Barritt, looking for yet another new combination in his problem area of midfield.
Saracens played Saturday's match without England fly-half Owen Farrell, but McCall said: "Owen is resting after three busy weeks with England.but he will be back for next week."
Stand-in fly-half Ben Ransom, who came on after former England international Charlie Hodgson went off injured, scored the lone try of the match with a conversion and two penalties from Alex Goode helping Saracens to a 13-3 lead at half-time.
But Exeter fought back before Argentina centre Marcelo Bosch's penalty from the half-way saw Sarries to victory.
Northampton were left two points behind Saracens stayed after an 18-0 win over Newcastle, centres James Wilson and Luther Burrell, long regarded as an England prospect, scoring both their tries.
Reigning champions Leicester beat London Irish 20-11, scoring a penalty try in each half from a scrum.
Exiles coach Brian Smith, the former Australia and Ireland international, was not the first visiting official to leave Welford Road thinking the typically vocal crowd had unduly influenced the referee.
"There were a series of scrums and the crowd were as impatient as the (Leicester) coaches," Smith said.
"But I take nothing away from Leicester. They had the intent and wanted to scrum us into the ground and got rewarded."
Saturday's other match saw Harlequins beat Gloucester 27-19 in a match where the losers had three players sin-binned, including former New Zealand scrum-half Jimmy Cowan.
Tom Savage and Martyn Thomas were also yellow-carded but it was Cowan's temporary exclusion that proved costly, with Quins scoring 14 points in his absence.
"For the first 20 to 25 minutes we were in the contest but the yellow card for Cowan saw a huge momentum swing," said Gloucester boss Nigel Davies.
Harlequins counterpart Conor O'Shea was pleased to see the London club maintain their recent good form.
"That is three consecutive wins in the Premiership and we are back in the top four," he said.
"But we are going to have to be more ruthless," added the former Ireland full-back.
Source: AFP
