Leicester and England boosted by Ben Youngs injury news after Tigers pile pressure on struggling Harlequins

The 28-year-old scrum-half damaged ligaments in his knee in the first half of England’s opening Six Nations encounter in Rome

Ben Youngs suffered an injury in England's win over Italy (Getty Images)

Leicester and England fans have been given a major boost with the news that the knee injury Ben Youngs suffered against Italy is not as severe as initially feared.

The 28-year-old scrum-half damaged ligaments in his knee in the first half of England’s opening Six Nations encounter in Rome and has been ruled out of the tournament, with early predictions indicating the British and Irish Lion would be sidelined for up to four months.

But Leicester medics are considerably more optimistic and believe Eddie Jones’s first-choice No9 will be ready to return “within six to eight weeks”, meaning Youngs should be available for the tail end of the season and England’s three-Test summer tour of South Africa.

Youngs’ return, most probably in early April, will be a welcome boost for Matt O’Connor’s men, who kept themselves in the hunt for a play-off place with an all-important victory over fellow strugglers Harlequins at Welford Road on Saturday.

Australian international Matt Toomua, usually a centre but picked at fly-half for the first time in George Ford’s absence on Six Nations duty, inspired the Tigers to a desperately needed win which lifts them to seventh in the Aviva Premiership table and breathes new life into their campaign.

With England prop Ellis Genge also closing in on a return from injury and game-breakers Manu Tuilagi and Telusa Veainu back after long spells on the sidelines, Leicester’s hopes of reaching the play-offs suddenly look considerably rosier than they did before kick off against Quins.

“There is a bit of an unspoken sense of expectation amongst the players that the club is a high achieving club,” said man-of-the-match Toomua.

“We always want to be there (in the play-offs). I don’t think we feel the external pressure to make it because the internal expectations are so high. We want to be in the play-offs but it’s still too early to be talking about that.

Manu Tuilagi is crunched by opposite centre Jamie Roberts (Getty Images)

“We’ve seen this week any team can fall over against anyone. It’s such a tight competition, easily the tightest I’ve been a part of. All you’ve got to do is focus on your job and then teams can fall over in front of you. It’s starting to happen already. I think we’ll see quite a few surprises.

“We’re seventh now but if we’d lost we’d have been down to 10th. You’d go crazy thinking about it to be honest. It’s best to just stick to your guns and realise it will probably even up more than it has in the past.”

With Ford, Dan Cole and Jonny May absent on England duty and Youngs side lined for the time being, Tigers face Saracens at Allianz Park next Sunday before travelling to resurgent Worcester the following weekend.

They will do so in considerably higher spirits after Saturday’s impressive second-half comeback against a Harlequins side whose season is going from bad to worse.

Toomua scored the decisive try of the game in the 61st minute and collected a personal haul of 23 points, although the watching England coach Jones won’t have been overly impressed by the sight of Tuilagi slipping off a number of tackles in his seventh start this season after a lengthy injury battle.

Hopefully more time on the pitch will increase Tuilagi’s match sharpness but the extraordinary amount of strapping on his left knee coupled with a sluggish all-round display suggests his injury concerns may not be completely in the past.

Quins England hopefuls Marcus Smith and Kyle Sinckler also endured tough afternoons in front of Jones. The apprentice fly-half Smith missed three kicks at goal and struggled to break the Tigers down while tighthead prop Sinckler was twice penalise in the first half by referee Wayne Barnes before being substituted on the hour mark.

With rumours of discontent in the Quins dressing room and director of rugby John Kingston struggling to make his mark, it could be a bleak end to the season for the underperforming west London club.