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'Bizarre': How vegetables injury sidelined Bristol's Fitz Harding

By Liam Heagney
(Photo by Rob Newell/CameraSport via Getty Images)

Bristol boss Pat Lam has quipped that fast-rising back-rower Fitz Harding needs to improve his food preparation skills after a self-inflicted kitchen injury sidelined him from last weekend’s Gallagher Premiership win over Wasps. The soon-to-be 23-year-old has become a Bears regular this season, making eleven starts in the league and another two in Europe.

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His emergence resulted in the decision by Bristol to loan out Nathan Hughes to Bath in recent weeks but Lam wasn’t temped to recall the ex-England No8 from his loan when it emerged that Harding was unavailable for selection last Friday night due to a mishap at home. 

“Fitz was a bizarre (situation),” explained Lam at his midweek media briefing on Wednesday. “He was cooking and unfortunately he cut his finger when he was cutting vegetables. He ruled himself out last week.”

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Bristol are back in action on Saturday at Bath but Lam wasn’t fully sure whether Harding will make it back in time to be considered for selection. “We’ll see how he goes. It would be one, two weeks max so we will see if he gets through this week whether it is worth taking the risk.”

The news that Harding had injured himself was relayed to Lam last week by his medical team and it was the following day when he caught up with the embarrassed Harding. 

“It normally comes to me via the medical team and I see him the next day and it’s like (Lam places his hand over his face), but fair play, at least he wasn’t on Uber Eats or Deliveroo. He was making his own dinner, which is again consistent with Fitz because he is a very independent man but maybe he has got to improve his cooking skills, the preparation skills.”

While Lam is unsure about Harding’s availability for Bristol this Saturday, what is certain is that Hughes won’t be lining up against them at The Rec as one of the stipulations of his loan deal with Bath was that he couldn’t play in the March 5 game against his parent club.  

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“He is still with Bath at this stage. The call back option will only come in if we bring him back and play him. Nate is clocking the game times up for Bath which is great so he is ready to go if we need him going into this run-in.”

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Jon 9 hours ago
Jake White: Are modern rugby players actually better?

This is the problem with conservative mindsets and phycology, and homogenous sports, everybody wants to be the same, use the i-win template. Athlete wise everyone has to have muscles and work at the gym to make themselves more likely to hold on that one tackle. Do those players even wonder if they are now more likely to be tackled by that player as a result of there “work”? Really though, too many questions, Jake. Is it better Jake? Yes, because you still have that rugby of ole that you talk about. Is it at the highest International level anymore? No, but you go to your club or checkout your representative side and still engage with that ‘beautiful game’. Could you also have a bit of that at the top if coaches encouraged there team to play and incentivized players like Damian McKenzie and Ange Capuozzo? Of course we could. Sadly Rugby doesn’t, or didn’t, really know what direction to go when professionalism came. Things like the state of northern pitches didn’t help. Over the last two or three decades I feel like I’ve been fortunate to have all that Jake wants. There was International quality Super Rugby to adore, then the next level below I could watch club mates, pulling 9 to 5s, take on the countries best in representative rugby. Rugby played with flair and not too much riding on the consequences. It was beautiful. That largely still exists today, but with the world of rugby not quite getting things right, the picture is now being painted in NZ that that level of rugby is not required in the “pathway” to Super Rugby or All Black rugby. You might wonder if NZR is right and the pathway shouldn’t include the ‘amateur’, but let me tell you, even though the NPC might be made up of people still having to pull 9-5s, we know these people still have dreams to get out of that, and aren’t likely to give them. They will be lost. That will put a real strain on the concept of whether “visceral thrill, derring-do and joyful abandon” type rugby will remain under the professional level here in NZ. I think at some point that can be eroded as well. If only wanting the best athlete’s at the top level wasn’t enough to lose that, shutting off the next group, or level, or rugby players from easy access to express and showcase themselves certainly will. That all comes back around to the same question of professionalism in rugby and whether it got things right, and rugby is better now. Maybe the answer is turning into a “no”?

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