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Bristol confirm Ellis Genge injury and likely 2024 return date

Ellis Genge of Bristol Bears looks on during the Gallagher Premiership Rugby match between Bristol Bears and Gloucester Rugby at Ashton Gate on December 02, 2023 in Bristol, England. (Photo by Ryan Hiscott/Getty Images)

England and Bristol Bears prop Ellis Genge has picked up an injury that will likely rule him out for the rest of the year.

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The Bears are readying themselves to take on French side Lyon at Ashton Gate this weekend in the opening round of the Investec Champions Cup, but have revealed that their star front row won’t be involved.

The loosehead suffered an injury during a Bristol Bears training session at the Bears High-Performance Centre at Abbots Leigh this week, but is expected to be back in time for England’s Six Nations campaign.

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Sam Warburton discusses the Champions Cup format

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Sam Warburton discusses the Champions Cup format

Bristol said today that: “Genge picked up a hamstring injury in training but is expected to return to action ahead of England’s 2024 Six Nations campaign.”

Jake Woolmore steps into the front row to fill the void left by the injured 28-year-old.

It’s bad timing for Bristol, who are looking to get back on track against Lyon after a mediocre start to the season.

Magnus Bradbury makes a comeback from injury as the Bears face Lyon in the opening round of the Investec Champions Cup at Ashton Gate on Saturday night. The Scotland international starts at number eight in the back row, joining forces with Steven Luatua and Fitz Harding.

“We’ve spoken a lot this week about the excitement and privilege of playing in the Champions Cup and challenging ourselves against some of the best sides in Europe,” said DoR Pat Lam. “We know the strength and challenge that Lyon will pose on Saturday night, but we’re looking forward to taking on a quality outfit in front of our supporters.”

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BRISTOL BEARS TEAM FOR LYON: 15. Max Malins, 14. Gabriel Ibitoye, 13. Virimi Vakatawa, 12. Benhard Janse van Rensburg, 11. Rich Lane, 10. Callum Sheedy, 9. Harry Randall; 1. Jake Woolmore, 2. Harry Thacker, 3. Kyle Sinckler, 4. James Dun, 5. Joe Batley, 6. Steven Luatua, 7. Fitz Harding (c), 8. Magnus Bradbury.

REPLACEMENTS: 16. Gabriel Oghre, 17. Sam Grahamslaw, 18. Max Lahiff, 19. Josh Caulfield, 20. Dan Thomas, 21. Sam Wolstenholme, 22. James Williams, 23. Kalaveti Ravouvou

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J
JW 1 hour ago
Does South Africa have a future in European competition?

I rated Lowe well enough to be an AB. Remember we were picking the likes of George Bridge above such players so theres no disputing a lot of bad decisions have been made by those last two coaches. Does a team like the ABs need a finicky winger who you have to adapt and change a lot of your style with to get benefit from? No, not really. But he still would have been a basic improvement on players like even Savea at the tail of his career, Bridge, and could even have converted into the answer of replacing Beauden at the back. Instead we persisted with NMS, Naholo, Havili, Reece, all players we would have cared even less about losing and all because Rieko had Lowe's number 11 jersey nailed down.


He was of course only 23 when he decided to leave, it was back in the beggining of the period they had started retaining players (from 2018 onwards I think, they came out saying theyre going to be more aggressive at some point). So he might, all of them, only just missed out.


The main point that Ed made is that situations like Lowe's, Aki's, JGP's, aren't going to happen in future. That's a bit of a "NZ" only problem, because those players need to reach such a high standard to be chosen by the All Blacks, were as a country like Ireland wants them a lot earlier like that. This is basically the 'ready in 3 years' concept Ireland relied on, versus the '5 years and they've left' concept' were that player is now ready to be chosen by the All Blacks (given a contract to play Super, ala SBW, and hopefully Manu).


The 'mercenary' thing that will take longer to expire, and which I was referring to, is the grandparents rule. The new kids coming through now aren't going to have as many gp born overseas, so the amount of players that can leave with a prospect of International rugby offer are going to drop dramatically at some point. All these kiwi fellas playing for a PI, is going to stop sadly.


The new era problem that will replace those old concerns is now French and Japanese clubs (doing the same as NRL teams have done for decades by) picking kids out of school. The problem here is not so much a national identity one, than it is a farm system where 9 in 10 players are left with nothing. A stunted education and no support in a foreign country (well they'll get kicked out of those countries were they don't in Australia).


It's the same sort of situation were NZ would be the big guy, but there weren't many downsides with it. The only one I can think was brought up but a poster on this site, I can't recall who it was, but he seemed to know a lot of kids coming from the Islands weren't really given the capability to fly back home during school xms holidays etc. That is probably something that should be fixed by the union. Otherwise getting someone like Fakatava over here for his last year of school definitely results in NZ being able to pick the cherries off the top but it also allows that player to develop and be able to represent Tonga and under age and possibly even later in his career. Where as a kid being taken from NZ is arguably going to be worse off in every respect other than perhaps money. Not going to develop as a person, not going to develop as a player as much, so I have a lotof sympathy for NZs case that I don't include them in that group but I certainly see where you're coming from and it encourages other countries to think they can do the same while not realising they're making a much worse experience/situation.

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