Bristol Bears are being ‘cautious’ with star full-back Charles Piutua ahead of arguably the biggest game in the club’s recent history as he continues to deal with a niggling injury.
Bristol host French Top 14 side Bordeaux Bègles on Friday night in the club’s first ever Challenge Cup semi-final and while director of rugby Pat Lam confirmed the club will be boosted by the return of one of their most experienced players in Siale Piutau, who is back from his three match suspension for striking Andrew Kitchener against Worcester Warriors in the Gallagher Premiership, his brother Charles is a slight doubt.
Lam said: “There is always fatigue when you have played a lot of rugby. There are always niggles and stuff and that is what the medical team and the athletic performance are there for to work in the recovery. We are all good.”
Charles Piutau was replaced in the 51st minute of the 56-17 victory over the Dragons on Friday night in the quarter-finals of Europe. He was replaced by the outstanding Max Malins.
Lam explained: “We are just monitoring Charles, he has had an ongoing Achilles issue so we just manage that as we go through. It is all just niggles and stuff at this stage."
Reading between the lines it would be shock not to see marquee signing Piutau in the 15 jersey this weekend in such a crucial game.
Speaking about Siale Piutau, Lam added: “It is great to have Siale. His suspension is over so he becomes an option for us this week [at 12 with Piers O’Conor starting there in the semi-final].
“I think it is great that he becomes an option to be on the field, because nothing changed since the suspension off the field; he has been working hard in training, pushing the boys hard and leading hard.
“The only difference this week is he is available to be selected but it is not like a sudden change.”
Ahead of the quarter-final on Friday night, Bristol had just three players listed as unavailable due to injury in Jake Armstrong (ankle), Max Lahiff (concussion) and James Dun (concussion).
Today Lam confirmed prop Max Lahiff has passed all the concussion protocols and will be available for selection this weekend and was quick to praise his staff and players for managing to get so many of the squad to be available for selection.
He added: “I said all the time for the programme to be a success it is about the quality of staff. We have got some unbelievable staff here in all of those areas and the boys are well looked after in the sense that we work hard but then looked after in their recovery and the new high performance centre aids that as well.
“We also know there is some luck there as well because it is a contact game, a physical game but for us it is about giving the boys the best possible chance to recover.”
With that in mind Lam gave the players an extra originally unplanned day off this week leading into the semi-final after his players impressed him with their levels in training.
Going into the big knockout game Lam said he had some tough selection calls in front of him.
“I always tell the players to not make it easy for me by not playing well. There are a lot of guys in form and there are certainly some tough decisions to be made and that is what I want.”
