Updated: Injury-hit Borders rugby star Darcy Graham out of action again until end of year

The Hawick 29-year-old’s latest injury is a bicep rupture sustained during Edinburgh’s 33-19 pre-season friendly defeat away to London’s Harlequins last Friday.

Though initially unaware anything was too much amiss, the right-winger now faces another three months on the sidelines, ruling him out of selection for Scotland’s three autumn internationals in November and Edinburgh’s first eight to ten fixtures of the new season, starting with a trip to Ulster last Friday for their United Rugby Championship opener.

His No 14 jersey for that 34-29 win in Belfast went to Malelili Satala and he touched down one of the visitors’ four tries.

Edinburgh head coach Sean Everitt isn’t expecting to see the 57-times-capped Borderer – Scotland’s all-time top try-scorer, with 38 – play again until late December at the soonest, meaning that the earliest games he could be in contention for selection for would be at home to Glasgow Warriors at the capital’s Murrayfield Stadium on Sunday, December 27, or their first fixture of 2027, hosting Italy’s Benetton at the next-door Hive Stadium on Saturday, January 2.

“Unfortunately, we’ve had a few injuries, but that’s the nature of pre-season,” said Everitt, 56, also without Graham’s Scotland teammates Duhan van der Merwe, Luke Crosbie, Grant Gilchrist, Ben Vellacott, Harry Paterson, Ben Muncaster, Ewan Ashman and Pierre Schoeman and fellow Borderer Patrick Harrison for the start of the new championship campaign.

“We haven’t had much luck as far as that’s concerned.

“The injuries have been pretty freakish. Darcy Graham got a contusion on his bicep in a collision on the weekend. He was training on Monday when we got the MRI report that he’s ruptured his bicep.

“That’s not good news for us and not good news for him, especially with the autumn series coming up.

“He’ll be out for 12 weeks minimum. It will be around Christmas. It’s not an injury that you can rush a player back from. Some players heal quicker than others.

“That would be the worst-case scenario for us and I have to prepare that way.”

The Scotland games Graham will miss in November are their Nations Championship fixtures against New Zealand, Australia and Japan, all at Murrayfield, on Saturday the 7th, Sunday the 15th and Saturday the 21st respectively.

He’ll also be unavailable for Edinburgh’s next six or seven championship matches and two European Professional Club Rugby Challenge Cup ties, both versus French opposition – at home to Toulon in October and away to Vannes in December.

The capital city side’s warm-up against Harlequins was Graham’s first game since Scotland’s July Nations Championship wins by 33-17 at home to Fiji and 47-38 away to Argentina.

They were among 25 matches he played last season, 15 for Edinburgh and ten for his country.

That was down from 27 the prior term but well up on the respective ten and 14 he was restricted to during his injury-hit 2023-24 and 2022-23 seasons.

Among the catalogue of injuries he’s suffered over the years were ankle ligament damage 17 minutes into his British and Irish Lions debut in Australia in July last year, a concussion requiring hospitalisation after a clash of heads with Scotland teammate Finn Russell five months earlier, a bilateral groin tear in February 2024 and knee ligament issues in December 2022.

Graham’s fellow ex-Green Hector Patterson – on for the first 75 minutes at scrum-half before making way for Conor McAlpine – was also among Edinburgh’s try-scorers against Ulster, along with openside flanker Freddy Douglas and full-back Piers O’Conor, and fly-half James Grayson converted all four of their tries, as well as kicking two penalties.

Touching down for the hosts were Mikey Lowry, Zac Ward, Dave McCann and Keynan Knox, with Jack Murphy adding three conversions and a penalty.

Patterson, 21, was one of three Borderers in Everitt’s starting XV, co-captained by outside-centre Matt Currie and No 8 Magnus Bradbury.

The No 9 was accompanied by Melrose’s Harri Morris at hooker and Jedburgh’s Glen Young at lock, and they were joined by Peebles’ Rory McHaffie on the bench. Young, 31, was on for the full 80 minutes-plus but Morris, 24, went off just after the hour mark, with Jerry Blyth-Lafferty replacing him. Making his first-team debut, McHaffie, 19, was brought on as a replacement for left-winger Geordie Gwynn at the same times as Morris went off.

Next up for Edinburgh is a visit from Stormers this Friday, with kick-off against the South Africans at 7.45pm.