Dafydd Jenkins reveals shoulder surgery after playing through pain to reach Premiership final

Dafydd Jenkins has revealed he needed shoulder surgery after playing through injury to help Exeter Chiefs reach the Gallagher Premiership final against Northampton Saints at Twickenham in June, where the Chiefs fell 26-17.

The Wales lock aggravated the shoulder during the run-in and underwent an operation after the season ended. He is now in a race against time to be available for Exeter’s opening Premiership fixture against Gloucester at Sandy Park.

Jenkins, who missed the Nations Championship as a result of the injury, made no apologies for pushing his body to the limit when the stakes were highest. “I was never going to miss a semi-final or final of the PREM,” he said. “It was just the way it worked out. We had to win a couple of games in a row, and it was something I really wanted to be a part of.”

The 23-year-old played 32 games across club and international rugby last season and acknowledged that the volume of fixtures placed on dual-registered players makes physical breakdown almost inevitable. “If you play a lot of games in the season, you’re probably going to break your body at some point,” he said. “But we’re going to do everything we can to put ourselves in the best possible scenario later in the season.”

Jenkins scored his only try of the campaign in the final itself, but the defeat has left a mark he is determined to erase. “We’ve had a taste of a PREM final, but we got on the wrong side of it. That hunger is still there because we want to go one better. No one is going to speak about the PREM final last year — they’re going to speak about who won it.”

He was generous in his assessment of the champions, adding: “Saints are an awesome team, and we just want to replicate what they did and be that team.” Exeter begin their title defence bid at Sandy Park in just over a week, with Jenkins’ availability still uncertain.