Gloucester Rugby host Bristol Bears on Friday night in their second pool stage game of the 2025/26 PREM Rugby CupArthur Clark carries the ball during England Rugby training (Photo by Scott Taetsch – RFU/The RFU Collection via Getty Images)

53-cap All Black tighthead prop Nepo Laulala will make his Gloucester Rugby debut this weekend against Bristol Bears in the PREM Rugby Cup having recovered fully from his Achilles injury.

Cherry and Whites director of rugby George Skivington said he and fellow summer signing Hugh Bokenham, who arrived from Cornish Pirates, will be involved this weekend in the final game before the Gallagher PREM gets underway, with Gloucester travelling to Sale Sharks on Thursday, September 25.

Skivington said: “Nepo will be involved on Friday night, so that’ll be great. He’s got back to the point now where he can play, which is brilliant. But he’s been great. He’s obviously vastly experienced. He’s a really good man. He just goes about his business and takes it very seriously. But he’s been great around the building as well. Some of our young props like Afo [Fasogbon], it’s great for him to be around the 50-cap All Black with all that experience.

“We will get him back out on the pitch on Friday, and hopefully we can get the best out of him and get him back at least somewhere near where he was previously. There’s a lot of work to be done and there’s a lot of rugby to be played.”

Laulala arrived in Gloucester midway through last season to finish rehabbing the Achilles injury that derailed his move to Toulouse in 2023.

Skivington continued: “Hugh Bokenham [who arrived at the club with a knee injury], he’ll get an opportunity as well, having been injured and just got back into it. So there are quite a lot of things at play on Friday.”

Last Friday’s 29-15 win over Exeter Chiefs was not without its casualties, either with prop Archie McArthur leaving the field on a stretcher and heading straight for the hospital following a big collision. Fortunately, extensive tests have found no lasting damage has been done.

Skivington said: “Archie’s actually fine, which is great news. I think he basically took a massive whack on one of those runs. It was a big shock to the system. They stretched him off, took him to the hospital, and he’s had MRI scans, X-rays, all the rest of it, but thankfully, he’s all good. He’s not done any training since or anything just to make sure the body settles back down. But thankfully, he’s fine.”

Elsewhere in the front row, versatile prop Jamal Ford-Robinson is expected to miss the start of the season with an unnamed injury but loose head Val Rapava-Ruskin is on the cusp of playing.

This week, 36 players in contention to be involved with England in the Autumn internationals came together to train at Pennyhill Park, with Gloucester centre Seb Atkinson getting the call, but his fellow summer debutant Arthur Clark was listed as ‘not considered for selection,’ which is often code for being injured.

However, Skivington insisted: “He’s not injured. He’s just got a bit of a sore foot basically. It’s enough that we pulled him out of training here and between our medics and England, they decided just to leave him here and we can manage him back through. But it’s nothing serious. It’s just a niggle.”