Sam Tomkins is an injury doubt for England’s Test match against France at Leigh on Saturday.
England head coach Steve McNamara has revealed the full-back is still troubled by the knee problem that sidelined him during New Zealand Warriors’ season and eventually brought his NRL career to a premature end.
Tomkins, who cut short his stint in Auckland to rejoin home-town club Wigan for the 2016 season, trained on his own on Tuesday at England’s new base at the FA’s training camp at Burton upon Trent in Staffordshire.
It is almost two months since Tomkins’ last match but McNamara insists he will not rush the player back, although remains confident he will be fit for the start of the three-match Test series against New Zealand, which gets under in Hull next weekend.
“Sam has had an issue from the NRL season,” McNamara said. “If Sam’s fit he will be considered, if he’s not we’ll get him right for the week after.
“He’s a strong chance of playing this week. We’ll probably know a little bit more after another session tomorrow.
“It’s the same injury he had when he was at the Warriors. He needed a fair bit of attention when he came back which he’s been getting. We’ll continue to monitor that but I can’t see there being any problems moving forward.”