Northampton Saints winger George North has returned to training following his latest head injury.

North has been prevented from playing by the Saints since sustaining an injury following a dangerous tackle from Adam Thompstone during the 19-11 defeat to Leicester Tigers on December 3.

The Wales international was independently assessed due to his history of head injuries, but Northampton director of rugby Jim Mallinder expects to have the 24-year-old available for Friday night's match with Sale Sharks.

"He's back in training and he should be available to play against Sale. As I said he's been training (on Tuesday), he's had a bit of time off and he's feeling really good about himself, he's looking really sharp out there and he's looking forward to playing. George is actually going back to the specialists, just to check again that everything's okay," he told reporters.

"I'm not making decisions on whether he plays or not, that's out of my hands. That's down to the trained professionals to make the right judgements. And surely there's no better people to make those correct decisions. It's something that happened a few weeks ago, and thankfully George is fine. Physically he's been fine since the incident. So we're just waiting to hear from the report, and then we'll make our comment after that.

"I don't want to comment on the investigation any more, I spoke at length last week. What's important now is that it comes out and we can comment on it then. We've said it right from the beginning: player welfare is the most important thing. If there's any doubts the medics will come and talk to me and we will stand players down. So player welfare is number one."

North suffered four notable blows to the head in the space of five months between November 2014 and March 2015, the last of which resulted in an absence until August 2015.