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Seven candidates for the vacant All Blacks head coach job
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England prop Will Stuart set to miss Six Nations after ruptured Achilles
By PA
Bath prop Will Stuart is unlikely to play any further part in the club’s Investec Champions Cup campaign after suffering a suspected Achilles tendon rupture against Munster.
Stuart received lengthy attention after a scrum collapsed in the 47th minute.
It will also come as unwelcome news for England head coach Steve Borthwick as he plans his 2026 Six Nations campaign.
Bath head of rugby Johann van Graan said: “No, he’s not in a good way. It looks like it’s his Achilles. I’m no medical expert, but he couldn’t even stand up when he got pulled off the field.
“I’ll receive an update later, but it looks very serious.”
However van Graan was more than satisfied with the 40-14 victory over Munster after racing into a 28-0 lead despite constant rain which made handling the ball almost impossible.
He added: “It’s a very good win, five points, and they didn’t get any league points.
“I think that’s one of our better starts that we’ve had, scoring four tries in I think 18 minutes. At half-time it was important not to let them back in and we won the second half 5-0.
“I thought it was a great occasion – two European teams with amazing supporters. What was impressive tonight was the way we adapted. It’s pretty dominating when you start 28-0 and you’ve got what you need.
“You’ve just got to manage the rest of the game and make sure they don’t get back into it.
“In the maul we were dominant and I think we had ascendancy in the scrum.
“On the flipside we’ve got a lot of respect for them and knew they would keep coming. At half-time the game wasn’t over, but we let them play in their own half. Tactically we managed it well and stuck to our plan.”
Munster captain Tadhg Beirne held his hand up for the early line-out problems, saying: “It was a silly error on my part. I lost one and then it was compounded then with a penalty into the corner.
“My yellow card was punished very severely when I was off the field. It was probably on my shoulders that first 20 minutes unfortunately.
“We’ll move on for next week, but I thought the fight from that point on was more like the Munster we know.”
Munster’s head of rugby Clayton McMillan said: “I feel that we are a better team than what we showed in the first 20 minutes, especially against a quality side. You give them that sort of margin and it’s going to be difficult to come back.
“We created a bit of early pressure, but we lost a few early line-outs which lifted the pressure somewhat.”
He added: “There were positives. Against one of the top teams in Europe we were able to keep the score even for a good 60 minutes. We don’t want to pat ourselves on the back for that though.”
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