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Gallagher-Prime Minister
Bristol Bears boss Pat Lam confirmed it England center Benhard Janse van Rensburg will not play again until December after being sidelined for six weeks.
Van Rensburg, 29, has suffered two significant concussions in his last three games, the last of which saw him knocked unconscious when he tried to tackle fellow England man Henry Pollock against Northampton October 3.
The South African-born centre, against whom he made his Test debut Fiji in July, will miss the second stage of the Nations Championship, but Lam says he will be back on the road at The Rec to face Bath December 4th.
He says Van Rensburg is training with the rest of his Bears squad but has to sit out contacts for another two weeks and will be held back from playing again until the next block of Gallagher PREM games.
“We were told ideally, four to six weeks, but we preferred six weeks. So we’re in week four now. So he’ll be ready to go when we get back to Bath, 100 per cent.”
“He was in training and he was back out there today. He did all the skills. The only thing they asked was not to do contact. Obviously, six weeks gives them a little bit more time to build in contact.”
“He wanted to come back after the normal protocol, and then the independent medical adviser wanted a little more time for that. BV really wanted to play last week, because he kind of heard about four to six weeks. But everyone wanted to be more cautious, and I supported that as well.
“He’s extremely frustrated and I’m pretty sure, off site, he’s probably hitting something somewhere. But he’ll be ready to go all guns blazing for round six,” Lam said in his midweek media call.