The Cherry & Whites star will undergo surgery on December 8 and Redpath, who is without fellow Scot Alasdair Strokosch at the moment, admits he doesn’t know how long Dickinson will be on the sidelines.

“He’s had shoulder problems for a wee while, and he’s rehabbed them,” said Redpath.

“But now’s the time for us to go inside and have a look at exactly what’s going on

“It’s just one of those things that happens, and you can’t legislate for guys getting injured on international duty.

“He will be having surgery on the eighth of December on a shoulder problem. It will be between two to three months for Dickinson probably, but we’ll just have to see how the surgery goes on that front before we can make an accurate assessment.

“You can never tell in shoulder surgery until you go inside and have a good look around, so we won’t know the precise level of damage in there until afterwards.”