Bristol Bears take on Sale Sharks at the Salford Community Stadium on Friday night in Round 17 of the 2024/25 Gallagher PremiershipSteven Luatua of Bristol Bears is helped off the field by team-mate Josh Caulfield (Photo by Patrick Khachfe/Getty Images)

Bristol Bears look set to head to Sale Sharks on Friday night with two of the aces in their pack in flanker Steven Luatua and hooker Harry Thacker both likely to be absent nursing knocks.

Former All Black Luatua limped off the pitch on Saturday in the Bears’ 36-14 win over a much-changed Bath side at the Principality Stadium with a knee injury, sparking fears around his availability during the ‘championship months’ of the season. The victory over Bath propelled Bristol into third place in the table, three points ahead of this weekend’s opponents, Sale Sharks, who lost 44-34 in a ding-dong battle with Leicester Tigers at Welford Road on Friday.

While it looks unlikely he will be ready to go head-to-head with the Sale’s Curry twins this weekend, the initial prognosis is Luatua will not spend a long time on the side lines.

Bristol director of rugby Lam said: “His injury is more bone bruising, which is good, so he won’t be too far away. The six-day turnaround is the real challenge, but thankfully, structurally, there isn’t too much damage. It isn’t a young knee, but he has been brilliant for us and thankfully, it isn’t too bad an injury.

“He is on fire. He has played more than 150 games for the club now and is a club legend. He is the perfect example of never going below a 7/10 in terms of his performance, which is what we want, and the boys have been driving to achieve. And if everyone does their jobs with low errors, then we win games.”

Bristol will also be without the services of evasive hooker Harry Thacker who suffered an injury in training before the Bath game to rule him out.

Lam confirmed: “He took a knock in training last week, but he shouldn’t be too far away.”

In truth, while Thacker is an incredibly gifted player, having more meaty options in Gabriel Oghre and Will Capon in the hooker berth for the trip to Manchester will likely suit the contest with Bristol fully aware they need to try and achieve at least parity in the physical contest in the forwards, with recently named British and Irish Lion Luke Cowan-Dickie likely to start for the home side.