French rugby giants Clermont's halfback crisis deepened on Wednesday as veteran Australian fly-half Brock James was ruled out for at least two months due to a heart complaint, revealed last season's beaten French Top 14 finalists.

The 33-year-old -- a mainstay of the Clermont side for almost a decade -- underwent an operation for an irregular heartbeat in July but on returning to exercising this week he felt that something wasn't right.

"He felt tired for a couple of days on resuming training," Clermont coach Franck Azema told AFP.

The club, who lost to Stade Francais in last season's French title final, released a statement confirming James was not in a fit state to begin the season which gets underway this weekend.

"The Clermont fly-half, who had undergone an operation a few weeks ago to correct an irregular heartbeat should have resumed light training in the coming days," read the statement on their website.

"Unfortunately, the fly-half who had resumed physical exercise at the beginning of the week felt an irritation which then increased.

"His programme has been interrupted with immediate effect so as to find the reason and the best way to treat it.

"A new series of tests will be undertaken in the next few days.

"The length of his unavailability will be established after the results of those tests."

James's absence will heap the pressure on France international fly-half Camille Lopez while Clermont will be forced to field a rookie scrum-half as they are already without their two first choice scrum-halves with Morgan Parra due to be away on World Cup duty and Ludovic Radosavljevic out with a groin injury.
Source: AFP