The Northampton Saints fly half Anthony Belleau answered an emergency call to face Bordeaux-Bègles on Sunday despite losing several teeth in their win over Harlequins last week.
The French No10 came into the Saints team that lost 50-28 in the Investec Champions Cup as a last-minute replacement for Fin Smith. The England fly half missed the match in southwest France with a calf injury.
Belleau played 80 minutes at Stade Chaban-Delmas with a specially designed mouthguard for his bottom row of teeth after suffering a bad facial injury at Franklin’s Gardens earlier in the week. The 29-year-old required dental surgery, a run of stitches, and will be left with a scar for life after the incident.
Dowson said Belleau’s late call-up showed “how much he cares about the team”
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Northampton’s director of rugby, Phil Dowson, revealed this tale of bravery after the match, saying they found one of Belleau’s teeth on the pitch during a run-through early last week at Franklin’s Gardens, following the 66-21 win over Harlequins on January 3.
“He had a pretty shocking injury, a really big cut down his chin, losing teeth,” Dowson said.
“We found teeth on the pitch that we presume are his. He’d been messaging the physio all week saying, ‘I’m fit to play, I’m fit to play’.
“Because we had Fin fit, we wanted to look after him and make sure that was healed. But as soon as Fin went down, Tony was knocking on the door, saying, ‘I want to play’.
“That speaks volumes; one, about him as a person, and two, about how much he cares about the team. He initiated it. He saw a specialist dentist around what the further ramifications of a [anaesthetic] shot in there would be, as unlikely as it is.
“He had a specialist gumshield made for his lower set of teeth, just for the match. Annoyingly, he did some contact training on Saturday to get him back into it, and he forgot his gumshield, so we had to get a taxi back to the hotel to go and get it.
“He showed good backbone there to get stuck in, and I thought he played pretty well. He will have further dentistry in the next couple of months.
“There was a bit of blood coming out of the stitches, but they held pretty well. The gumshield obviously looked after his bottom teeth, the ones that have been put back in there. He’s thinking of making a necklace with the ones he found! He’ll be OK and we’ll make sure that we look after him and we get the correct treatment for him.”
Smith’s calf injury is minor and unlikely to rule him out for long. Northampton are hopeful that the full back George Furbank should also return soon from a calf niggle he is managing, and they are monitoring Fraser Dingwall, the centre, who was knocked out against Harlequins at the start of the month, though he joked in a social media post that he “just wanted a snooze”.
All three should be fit for England’s Six Nations campaign. Steve Borthwick will name his squad for the championship on January 23, with their opening match coming against Wales at Twickenham on February 7.