JONATHAN DAVIES is unlikely to be available for any part of this season's Five Nations championship after entering hospital for a knee operation.

Davies, left out of the Welsh squad to face England at Twickenham next weekend, has already been restricted by injury to just five appearances for Cardiff since his return from rugby league.

Meanwhile, the Scotland team management reported no injury problems yesterday as they completed two days of intensive preparations for their Five Nations game against France at Murrayfield on Saturday.

The Scots forwards practised scrummaging on the "sledge", which was loaded with over two tons of weights. "We did a lot of live scrummaging before the Ireland game and that certainly helped us," said team manager Jim Telfer.

Telfer also revealed that the Scots had discussed their defeat by France in the World Cup in order not to repeat the same mistakes. "We bottled it," recalled Telfer. "We led 13-3 and then gave away two stupid penalties. Even then we did not take the game to them."

The Scotland team manager also conceded: "There were a lot of things we did not do well against Ireland. Today we talked a lot about kicking from hand and about ball retention."