Bristol Bears: Gabriel Oghre and Benjamin Grondona out for rest of season

The loss of Oghre and Grondona is another blow for a Bristol side that has struggled with injuries all season in what Lam has called the worst crisis he has experienced during his coaching career.

Lock Joe Batley injured his hamstring during the warm-up of the 52-19 win over the Red Bulls, while winger Noah Heward and full-back Rich Lane both went off during the match.

However Lam said the prognosis on the trio was not as bad while Santiago Grondona and Louis Rees-Zammit, who have missed three and two games, respectively, are also back training.

“Rich Lane, he’s not too bad, Batley, Heward those boys are hopefully back training on modifications, so we’ll see what happens with those guys but at least it’s not so bad as originally thought,” he said.

The number of injuries this season has had another impact on Bristol’s squad selection for their remaining games, as it has left the squad below the required level of having an average of 15 English qualified players (EQP) within every matchday 23.

As such, Argentina full-back Ben Elizalde has been loaned back to a club in his home country for the remainder of the campaign on the basis he will unlikely get gametime.

“With the amount of English guys that were injured – you have to average 15 over the season – so we’re below that at the moment, I’m trying to catch up on that,” Lam said.

“In some games I need to make sure I’ve got more than 15 English players on the field.”