Bears blow as trio need surgery

AJ MacGinty is likely to miss much of the 2025-26 season with an Achilles injury

Bristol Bears have been dealt a major blow with Harry Randall, AJ MacGinty and Gabriel Ibitoye all facing long spells on the sidelines and undergoing surgery for injuries this week.

The trio all went off in the Bears' win against Leicester last Sunday in their first outing of the new Prem season.

First choice fly-half MacGinty is facing nine months out with an Achilles injury and England scrum-half Randall is expected to be out until 2026 with a hamstring issue.

Winger Ibitoye - Bears' top try scorer of the past two seasons - also has a "complex" hamstring injury.

"I've probably never been in a game where I lose three starters, top players, to surgery in one game, but that's just the challenge we face," Lam said.

"If you look at all the Prem teams and say, 'OK take out their number one nine, number one 10 and the top try scorer...'

"Harry and AJ have played so much together, they're the big drivers of our game, and Ibitoye, everyone knows what he brings to our team."

'Odds on getting to the top four 100% gone up'

This is the second successive campaign Bristol - who reached the play-off semi-finals in June - have lost key players to major injuries.

MacGinty and Ibitoye both also missed chunks of the season last winter.

Bristol reduced the size of their senior squad over the summer to 31 players but Lam said improving their strength in depth to deal with injuries better was key.

Yet he accepted the absences have hit their chances of reaching the play-offs again this season.

"The odds on us getting through to the top four 100% have gone up - that's why it will be a massive highlight for us this year if we can bounce back from that, which we look forward to doing," Lam said.

Max Lahiff, James Williams, Noah Heward and full-back Rich Lane are among those also still on the sidelines and the recruitment team are looking at bringing in reinforcements if needed.

"We went into last week's game not expecting we'd lose those three," Lam said.

"You've got to go in prepared, 'what if another one goes down?'. That's what the recruitment team are doing, looking at what's available, working through the options then pull the trigger if we need to."

Bristol travel to Saracens on Saturday and Lam stressed they have to quickly move on to the next players coming into the squad.

"You acknowledge this is not ideal but then you don't dwell on it any more," Lam said.

"Today is about giving people the context of what we've lost but now we've already started the process of bringing the next guys in."

Gabriel Ibitoye scored 13 tries last season and was the top scorer for the Bears

At scrum-half, Bears look particularly short without Randall, who started England's most recent Test match against the USA over the summer and who has started 27 league matches in the past two seasons for Bristol.

Kieron Marmion is available, but third-choice nine Sam Wolstenholme remains out injured until November. Oscar Lennon has been brought back into the squad having most recently been playing Major League Rugby in the USA.

"He knows our game, he knows what it is, he's joined us this week," Lam said.

Similarly, Scotland back Tom Jordan has ample experience at 10 and slotted in there when MacGinty went off against the Tigers more than competently - going on to win the player of the match award.

Yet Lam tempered expectations around the 27-year-old who only signed for the team this summer.

"Tom's a brilliant player and has a lot of experience, but [he has] one and a half games of experience really of playing the Bears way and that's the challenge," Lam said.