After spending some six months on the sidelines rehabbing, George Furbank has been enjoying his time back in a Northampton Saints shirt, despite the side’s 34-22 loss to Leicester Tigers in the PREM Rugby Cup on Friday night.
Saints’ club captain had not taken to a rugby field since the Investec Champions Cup final last term, where Furbank’s involvement in the clash was cut devastatingly short after a nasty head knock ruled him out in just the game’s fifth minute.
After recovering from that concussion, Furbank had hoped to spend his summer in Argentina with England, but a calf injury curtailed those hopes and put the fullback – who featured at No. 10 for Saints on Friday – on another long road to recovery.
But after playing half an hour in his return to action against Newcastle Red Bulls a week ago, and 60 minutes of rugby against Tigers, the 29-year-old is looking forward to stringing a run of matches together.
“It was nice to get some more minutes under my belt,” said Furbank after defeat to Leicester.
“I had a bit of a taste of it at home, a bit of a taste away so hopefully next week I can get an 80 in.
“The calves are good. The rest of my body is now catching up, getting used to getting hit and hitting as well, so I’m grateful to be back.
“It’s about trying not to go in half-hearted because I think you risk yourself a bit more when you do that.
“It’s about going back in and trusting your body after being out for so long, even though it’s a tough thing to do mentally.
“It’s just nice to be back out there and I’m enjoying it.”
Furbank skippered Northampton from the fly-half shirt at Mattioli Woods Welford Road, with his conversion and drop goal coupled with JJ Van Der Mescht’s two scores putting Saints ahead after 35 minutes.
But Tigers clawed a try back just before the break to send Saints into half-time 19-15 down, and from there the hosts turned the screw, holding off Northampton’s attacks and adding two more tries of their own.
And while Oliver Scola added a consolation score for Saints on the stroke of full time, the damage had already been done and meant Northampton left Leicester without any points for their efforts.
“I don’t really know how we were behind at half-time to be honest,” said Furbank.
“It felt like we were dominating but they scored a couple of breakaway tries and in the second half the error count just went through the roof. You can’t do that in any game, particularly away from home, and they capitalised on it so fair play to them.
“It was really disappointing from us in the second half. It’s pretty hard to say why it happened but sometimes you just have those days.”
While Saints’ Cup campaign is far from over – with some four pool matches still to come in the spring – Furbank and his Saints side must now turn their attentions to the return of the Gallagher PREM and the start of the Investec Champions Cup over the next few weeks, beginning with a trip to Bristol Bears on Saturday (29 November, kick-off: 5.45pm).
“We’ve probably got to go and win all the other games to get into the PRC knockout stages now,” Furbank said.
“But we’re back into the PREM and Europe now so we’re focused on that.
“We’re in a good spot in the PREM and we want to start well in Europe as well.
“We’ve not won at Bristol in a long time but we’ve been good away so far this season so we’re going to take heaps of confidence going into that.”