LONDON: England suffered a double injury fright ahead of their tour of Australia after both Manu Tuilagi and Owen Farrell went off early as Saracens advanced into the Premiership final on Saturday.
Leicester centre Tuilagi, returning from a knee injury and playing on an artificial pitch for the first time, lasted just 20 minutes before going off with a damaged right leg while trying to tackle United States wing Chris Wyles in a Premiership semi-final match European champions Saracens won 44-17 at their Allianz Park ground in north London.
"Manu has pulled his hamstring. I don't know how bad it is, but it's not great. We'll assess it over the next couple of days," said Leicester director of rugby Richard Cockerill said.
"We don't know if he's out of the tour, we'll see how he gets on in the next 48 hours before assessing how bad it is."
Meanwhile Farrell, England's Six Nations grand slam-winning goalkicker, departed the scene after bearing the brunt of two heavy tackles.
By that stage Farrell had kicked 11 points in a match where Saracens, last season's Premiership champions, ran in five tries.
"I don't how serious it is," said Saracens boss Mark McCall.
"He's got a bang on the rib and you know ribs can go one way or another. Hopefully it goes the right way."
Eddie Jones, England's Australian coach, is due to name his squad for next month's three-Test series against the Wallabies on Sunday.
Saracens' bid to complete a European and domestic double continued in convincing fashion as they surged into a 31-0 half-time lead thanks to two tries apiece by Wyles and fellow wing Chris Ashton.
Leicester then scored 17 points at the start of the second half.
But the one-time kings of English rugby had left themselves with too much to do.
Last week, Saracens beat Paris-based Racing 92 in the European Champions Cup final.
Defeat meant Leicester suffered their second semi-final loss of the season following their European reverse against Racing.
Saracens will now face Exeter in the Premiership final at Twickenham on May 28 after they overcame Wasps 34-23 in Saturday's second semi-final.
Only promoted to the English top-flight in 2010, the south-west side are now just 80 minutes away from becoming Premiership champions.
Two penalty tries and further scores by centre Ian Whitten and flanker Dave Ewers saw Exeter delight their home crowd at Sandy Park as they saw off Wasps.
Afterwards, Exeter coach Rob Baxter said he was relishing the prospect of facing Saracens in the final.
"If someone said to me was there one team you would want to play in the final, you would have to say Saracens this season," Baxter said.
"They've been the stand-out the side, they finished top of the Premiership, they are the best team in Europe."
For Wasps, this loss meant they had suffered semi-final defeats in both Europe and the Premiership.
"No complaints," said Wasps boss Dai Young.
"The two teams in the final have been the first and second-best teams throughout the season. It's a great final."
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