FLANKER David Denton says he feels “lucky” to be in a position where he is close to returning to action following his injury scare this summer.

The Scotland international is nursing a “very small tear” in his ankle which he sustained in Worcester Warriors’ pre-season 55-21 win over Hartpury.

And he revealed he was hopeful of playing in Worcester’s first home clash of the season against Wasps in Aviva Premiership next Sunday (3pm).

But the 27-year-old admitted the prospect of such a quick comeback seemed highly unlikely when he picked up what he thought was a serious injury.

“I have spoken to a lot of people and they thought that I was going to be out for six months by the look on my face,” Denton said.

“But that’s only because that’s what I thought.

“I think I was due a bit of luck and I did get lucky as it turned out I was only going to be out for a few weeks.

“They thought it would require surgery because I have an old injury in there which looked worse than it was when they looked at the scans.

“But when I went to go to see the surgeon he looked at it and said you can tell this injury was five years old and what I had done was burst a membrane between my tibia and fibula.

“That sounds a lot worse than it is because you actually don’t need it.

“It has caused a lot of blood to go down my ankle and there is a very small tear but once I get back into running it should be fine.

“My ankle has not reacted badly to running so far, so hopefully over the next few days I will just keep going and should be ready to go.

“Newcastle (away on Friday) will be too soon, but I would love to play in the Wasps game.

“I will have to play it by ear and see how it goes.

“But I have started running so if I can get some more running in this week I am pretty sure I will be alright for Wasps.”

Denton made 23 appearances in two injury-hit years at Bath and said he “could not face” another long lay-off as he bids to make his mark at Warriors.

“I am normally pretty level headed about injuries as I know it is part and parcel with the job,” Denton said.

“But as I have had such a bad run recently I couldn’t face another long injury (lay-off).

“It is really tough mentally when you physically can’t go out there and do your job especially when you come to a new club.

“That was all flashing through my head after (the Hartpury game) and for the first three days I thought I was going to have surgery.

“So when they called me up and said that I was only going to be out for three weeks I genuinely think it is the happiest I have been for a long time.”