Bath suffer hooker blow as injury toll rises to worrying levels

New signing Dan Frost is set for a spell on the sidelines after Bath boss Johann van Graan revealed the former Exeter and Wasps hooker broke his hand against Leicester.

Frost was replaced early in the second half of the last-gasp, 22-20 defeat at Welford Road by Tom Dunn, who came on to make his 250th club appearance, having hurt his left hand carrying the ball into contact.

“Unfortunately, Frosty broke his hand and will be out for a number of weeks,” van Graan confirmed.

Van Graan then spoke about the crippling injury crisis which is affecting all clubs throughout the league, and the champions, despite having an excellent medical team, are now set to be without four players until next year.

“An update on some players: we won’t see Jaco Coetzee (knee) until the New Year; we’ll only see Bernard van der Linde (hamstring) in the New Year; we’ll only see Sam Harris (knee) in the New Year; and we’ll only see Ciaran Donoghue (knee) in the New Year.”

Meanwhile, England winger Will Muir has also gone for ankle surgery, and “will be out for a number of weeks.”

“That’s where we are, and we are very comfortable with the squad that we have, and we will adapt accordingly,” said the South African.

“Looking at our club and the amount of operations that we’ve had in the first few weeks, it’s a lot. And I believe we have got one of the best medical, performance and nutrition teams in world rugby.

“It is a concern. But that is the way it is, hence I go back to my belief that you need to develop a squad, and you need to make sure a lot of players get game time and, hopefully, perform through the season in such a way that you are in place for the knockout rounds when anything can happen.

“I think we have to do really well over the last two years to make that happen in all competitions. But we have to look after the players in many different ways.”

He added: “I can’t give you the facts but it certainly seems that there are many injuries across many teams across many different nations.

“And in my view, it is all big trauma injuries, there’s very few two or three-week injuries, it’s a lot of operations: ankles, ACLs, shoulders, hamstrings off the bone.

“The game is certainly getting tougher and tougher because the athletes are getting bigger and stronger and faster. However, medically, and I can only speak on behalf of Bath, we do extremely well in looking after the players. Player welfare is incredibly important.

“In a perfect world you want a longer off-season, you want a longer pre-season, and everybody is rested and playing.

“Unfortunately, that is not how rugby works currently. There is no perfect solution to this. A global season would be magnificent if we could all have a lot of time away.

“I think we are all in the same boat and I think everybody in rugby is working together to try and find a solution.

“But there is no getting away from it, there is a lot of disruption.”