Ross Vintcent: Exeter Chiefs’ Italy forward out with dislocated shoulder

Exeter are waiting to find out the full extent of the dislocated shoulder suffered by their Italy forward Ross Vintcent.

The 23-year-old was hurt while playing for the Azzurri in last Saturday’s 32-14 loss to South Africa.

Vintcent has scored three tries in three Prem appearances for the Chiefs this season and was part of Italy side that beat Australia earlier this month.

“We’ll probably get some further scans done and we’ll start the process of whether it’s an operative scenario or whether it’s just a plain rehab scenario, but we should know that in the next 48 hours,” Exeter director of rugby Rob Baxter said.

“He’s been very good and I thought he’s been outstanding for Italy at the moment, so that’s really unfortunate for him and for us.

“It’s another thing we’ve just got to kind of work our way through, hopefully we’ll get him back into rehab pretty quickly and we’ll just try and get him back as soon as possible.

“But dislocated shoulders, even if they go really well, they’re a little bit of time to rehab and get right so we just have to assess like say how things go.

“But if there’s any operative stuff in there, you’re talking 10 weeks for a fast return, so we’ll see where we stand in a little bit of time.”