It has been a solid enough season for the Bristol Bears, who sit fourth in the league, having played 14 games so far in the 2025/26 campaign.
A 52-19 win against bottom-of-the-league Newcastle Red Bulls seemed like, on paper, a fairly routine victory against weaker opposition.
Two tries from Benhard Janse van Rensburg as well as six others scoring once saw the Bears taking a convincing win—but it was not without some potentially huge complications.
Four new injuries for Bristol add to ‘challenges’ ahead of playoff push
Full-back Rich Lane, Argentine flanker Benjamin Grondona, star hooker Gabriel Oghre and try-scoring winger Noah Howard all appeared to pick up injuries in the win over the Red Bulls.
Bristol Bears director of rugby Pat Lam spoke post-game on the quartet all picking up injuries, admitting that it was a massive inconvenience to the club as the injury list appears to grow.
”There are a few boys with a few tears in the changing rooms. They are really disappointed… Rich Lane has only just got back from injury… Oghre got hit on the ground with his knee. The pitch is pretty hard.
”In the my whole years of coaching in 20-odd years, this is the worst it’s been… I said [at the start of the campaign] ‘I am that confident we have got a group ready to go’ and then boom, I spoke too soon with all the injuries.
“When you consider [Pedro] Rubiolo, [Viliame] Mata, [Steve] Luatua, [AJ] MacGinty, [Louis] Rees-Zammit, there’s so many players out.
”We do have one of the smaller squads, but this is life, this is coaching. It is full of challenges, but that is exactly what it is all about.”
The Bears are expected to have Welsh star Rees-Zammit and flanker Santi Grondona back before the match versus the Saracens in Round 15 in two weeks.
