"Gutted" - Tom Curry stood down from rugby due to injury he will never fully recover from

Sale fear England star Tom Curry's latest setback could be chronic and require management for the rest of his career.

The English back-row player has not played in the Gallagher Premiership since returning to Manchester after his national team secured a third-place finish in the Rugby World Cup in France last month.

Prior to the tournament, Curry had been sidelined with an ankle injury, which kept him out of all four games in the Summer Nations Series.

“I’m waiting on a specialist assessment on his hip,” explained Sale boss Alex Sanderson.

“He has got a dicky hip, that’s the medical term for it.

“He came in (from the World Cup) and was alright but as soon as we trained with any intensity he stiffened up and it took us a while to free him up again and these are some chronic micro-tears in his labrum. So of them chronic, maybe one or two of them from the World Cup.

“We have to wait and see until this specialist tells us exactly what he has done and how he has done it and what kind of rehabilitation and treatment he needs.

“I’m not giving you anything clear because I don’t know myself, but it could be as little as a couple of weeks to rehab it because it has shown up well this week; it could be a lot longer depending on how much wear and tear there might be on his bone.

“He was in Harley Street this morning. I have had a missed call from our head of medical whilst I have been in meetings upstairs and I have run straight from that straight down to here because I knew I was late for you guys [the media], so I haven’t heard.”

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Owens wrote: "We should aim for good performances that facilitate good games. In my opinion, perfect has become the enemy of the good because people are striving for a standard that is unachievable. A frustrating over-reliance on the TMO is one result of this fear of getting things wrong.

"Pressure is being exerted on referees by spectators, social media users, coaches, players, performance reviewers and referee managers. That is a lot of people scrutinising everything. I think we need to take a step back and make sure we pick up the things that matter."

Owens wrote: "To make it more effective, we need to be stricter about players staying on their feet at the contact area. Jackallers are going in to win turnovers and just being dragged to the ground by the attacking side, which means the jackaller has to let the ball go.

"The attacking side commits two, sometimes three players to the ruck to secure possession, but the defending side often decide not to continue contesting, and you end up with more defensive players on their feet, fanning out to cover the space, than attackers.

"It's illegal to pull a player down in that contact area, so until the officials deal with that more strictly, we are not going to see the full benefits of the 50:22 in terms of creating more space for attacking rugby. The law should stay, and the ruck law should be refereed."

Owens wrote: "As for goal-line dropouts, I was a big fan initially because I felt it would prevent attacking teams from numerous pick-and-gos near the try line, with teams instead attempting to move the ball wide to avoid being held up and losing possession. But I'm not sure it has worked as planned. We still see plenty of pick-and-gos until teams get over, we still see plenty of mauls and the number of collisions hasn't decreased.

"We are also seeing fewer scrums near the goal line, and to be honest I'm not sure that is a good thing. The scrum needs to be an important part of the game, and right now we are not seeing the benefits of it. Rugby must continue to be a game for all shapes and sizes, and at all levels, too.

Attacking teams are also kicking longer knowing that if the ball rolls dead, the defending team has to do a goal-line dropout and they can get the ball back. We've also lost the short dropouts we used to see from the 22-metre line where teams would compete to win the ball back, or a quick dropout would be taken, because teams now backed up on their goal line just kick the ball long to escape and what happens? The opposition kick it back.

"From initially believing it would work, I would now like the goal-line dropout law to go to be honest. If anything it is having a negative effect."

Owens, who would like to see the number of replacements reduced from eight to four our five, previously said: "This is something I have been saying for a long time.

"Every question and answer session I do I am always asked which law I would like to change and I always say I would like to see the substitution law changed.

"We as referees and referee managers in World Rugby, we're always looking at things that need to be applied firmer, which contributes to the safety of the game and that is an ongoing process

"It is a physical game and unless you change it beyond total recognition of what the sport is, you are going to have to accept that there is going to be a risk of injury, but a minimal risk if you compare it to people that are injured everyday in walking about doing nothing."

Owens wrote in his column for The Telegraph during the Lions series: "Some of the scrum-feeds from both sides - particularly in the second half by Cobus Reinach - were beyond a joke.

"I must say that I have been as guilty of not giving enough free-kicks for crooked feeds as any referee, but it has to be stopped as soon as possible now. Scrum-halves simply have to put the ball into scrums in an acceptable manner.

"Everyone you speak to about it wants feeds to be straight. Brian Moore has been making the point for years and I agree with him. Everyone comments on it, and there is no excuse. It has been allowed to creep in, after a brief crackdown a couple of years ago."