Hartley will be fit for start of season
The Northampton Saints have confirmed that their captain Dylan Hartley should be fit for the start of the season at the beginning of September.
Hartley would have travelled with the rest of the England team on their tour to the Southern Hemisphere but instead used the time to have an operation on his knee.
Rehabilitation has since gone very well and it looks to have been the right decision for a player who was torn between club and country. Hartley will now be reviewed at England's Twickenham training camp and any following news will be the strongest hint over whether he'll start the season on time.
Hartley being fit for the side means a number of positive things for the team. However, they cannot rush him back and will have to allow another player to guide the team during the first few games if Hartley is not one hundred per cent fit.
Benefits for the team
Hartley is one of the most experienced players currently at Northampton and experience is not something you can replace. He is one of the few players with more than one hundred (104) appearances for the club and he's scored 45 points since he joined in 2005.
It will be like getting a new player for the club. This is very positive and will lift the side. They would have been going through pre-season training and games without him. He's now very close to coming back in and it will have the same sort of effect that a summer signing would generate.
Hartley is one of the best hookers in the Premiership. He has managed to hold down his England place and only lost it because he decided he wanted to get himself sorted out in time for the new season. If he can produce the same sort of form that got him an England chance in the first place then the Saints will have a player controlling the middle areas of the field.
Head coach Jim Mallinder said: "Dylan will be okay. He has been running around in training and he will be fine for the start of the season. The knee has not been a problem and looking at it from my practical eye he is getting there."
No rush
Neither England or Northampton can force the progress of this player if they do not want to risk making the injury come up again. England will probably wrap him up in cotton wool during the EPS (Elite Performance Squad) week and monitor his fitness.
Northampton would be best advised to make sure he has everything he needs in place in order to be sure that he'll take to the field as Saints captain for their first Premiership game.
Mallinder added: "He has got an EPS week next week, so he is away with England - I'm not quite sure what he will do there. And then he will be coming away to play Dax with us with the aim of him playing in France."
Betting advice
If Hartley takes to the field for Northampton's first game then he will be in charge of a well energised and ambitious team. He will make them organised and efficient, which means fewer mistakes are likely to appear.
Don't be afraid to have a punt on him scoring from game to game but keep in mind that he is not statistically the best points scorer in the whole team. Only have a punt on him when the Saints play weaker teams because he will do more defensive work against better teams in the Premiership and Europe.
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