England and Sale Sharks centre Manu Tuilagi has been ruled out for six months with an Achilles injury, according to the Gallagher Premiership side’s director of rugby Steve Diamond.
Tuilagi, 29, was injured 12 minutes into Sale’s 14-34 win over Northampton Saints on Tuesday.
“Manu will be a loss to England and Sale,” Diamond at a news conference. “He’ll be out for six months. It’s brutal what we’re playing at the minute.
“Dan Biggar fell on him, so it was an accident. These things happen. I think it might have been a jinx, me saying before the game that we’ve got nine out of nine games out of him and boom, that happens. So I’ll keep my trap shut in future.
“Rather selfishly, after this game and the playoffs we probably wouldn’t have seen Manu until April with the England commitments and EPS [England Elite Player Squad] rest periods.”
The prognosis means he will miss England’s 2020 Six Nations game against Italy on Oct. 31 and the Autumn Nations Cup which begins in November. He could also miss England’s entire 2021 Six Nations campaign.
The former Leicester Tigers player, who only moved to Sale this summer, will have surgery on the injury next week.