![](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/0_GettyImages-2213922790.jpg\")
Bristol Bears’ Benhard Janse van Rensburg. (Photo by Bob Bradford – CameraSport via Getty Images)<\/p>\nBristol Bears host Leicester Tigers on Sunday in Round One of the 2025\/26 Gallagher PPREMBristol Bears’ Benhard Janse van Rensburg. (Photo by Bob Bradford – CameraSport via Getty Images)<\/p>\n
Bristol Bears head into their Gallagher PREM opener at home to Leicester Tigers in relatively good health with a number of key players back from precautionary rest last weekend.<\/p>\n
Bristol director of rugby Pat Lam confirmed the likes of star centre Benhard Janse van Rensburg, last season\u2019s joint top try scorer Gabriel Ibitoye and key forwards Joe Batley and George Kloska are all available for selection ahead of the league opener at Ashton Gate on Sunday, having been rested for Friday night\u2019s 40-24 PREM Rugby Cup win at Gloucester.<\/p>\n
Lam said: \u201cIbitoye and Batley are all good; they were rested as a precaution. They played against Sale the week before and got a hit out. BV and George Kloska are good to go.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe main reason most of those boys weren\u2019t there is to give them the best chance of being ready for Sunday.<\/p>\n
\u201cI never like to play on a 4G pitch [like Kingsholm] before the season starts because it takes players longer to recover, but Harry Randall, Gabs Oghre and Tom Jordan had been on international duty and needed to start, Louis Rees-Zammit needed some more time.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe plan was to play most of the boys the weeks before.\u201d<\/p>\n
Discussing Rees-Zammit, who looks likely to make his first start in the league for the Bears this weekend, having returned from 18 months out in America trying to break into the NFL, Lam said: \u201cThe Bears and Louis Rees-Zammit are a match made in heaven because of the way he wants to play and the way that we play. It works really well together.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am really proud because every day he has got better and better. If he is involved this week, then I know match fitness-wise he still has a bit to come, because our back three run a lot, but what he offers us is huge.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lam confirmed the Bears are slightly short of options at full-back heading into Tigers, with Rich Lane and Noah Heward both still recovering from injuries.<\/p>\n
New signing Tom Jordan lined up at 15 at Kingsholm last weekend and looks likely to do so again on Sunday, unless he is required at inside centre with James Williams potentially carrying a knock and Kalaveti Ravouvou only just back in the country after helping Fiji to win the Pacific Nations Cup on Sunday.<\/p>\n
Although Lam said he is prepared to throw Ravouvou and Bill Mata straight back into club duty after they had a number of \u2018down periods\u2019 built in during the international competition this summer.<\/p>\n
Star England prop Ellis Genge remains ineligible for selection for the first two rounds of the Gallagher Premiership, like all British and Irish Lions players, as he continues his mandatory rest period.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bristol Bears host Leicester Tigers on Sunday in Round One of the 2025\/26 Gallagher PPREMBristol Bears’ Benhard Janse…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":448818,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8818],"tags":[21570,381,21571,748,393,4884,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-448817","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-bristol","8":"tag-aviva-premiership","9":"tag-bristol","10":"tag-bristol-bears","11":"tag-britain","12":"tag-england","13":"tag-great-britain","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115261338473416513","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448817","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=448817"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448817\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/448818"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=448817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=448817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=448817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}