Jess undergoes toe surgery

By Mark Stevens
7/10/2016

Exeter Chiefs have suffered an injury blow after experienced wing Matt Jess was ruled out until February next year with a toe problem.

Jess picked up the injury during the first half of the Exeter Braves Aviva A League encounter away to Saracens at Allianz Park last month.

Chiefs head coach Rob Baxter confirmed this week that the 32-year-old has already undergone surgery on the problem and admitted it's not been a simple diagnosis for the club’s medical team to solve.

"Whenever you talk about big toe injuries they sound relatively minor, but they can be pretty complex," said Baxter. "When it involves the bottom of the foot and the ligaments around the toe as it does with Matt it could be a relatively long term injury."

The loss of Jess is yet another untimely blow for the Chiefs, who are still without the services of Don Armand, Michele Campagnaro and Dave Ewers due to injury.

That said, Baxter is confident Jess - who has made 185 appearances and scored 58 tries for the Devon club - will get his head down in terms of his rehabilitation and be back firing on all cylinders sooner rather than later.

"He is a real good leader of the culture we have here and the quality of people we want around, so it is a shame for him not to be available,” added Baxter. “However, he will very quickly be able to be involved in and around the club in other roles and other ways.

"Matt is also coming to the age where he is starting to consider his next career options and what this allows him to do while he is rehabilitating is to think about some of those things as well – ideally we'd like him to stay around the club."