READ MORE: Bristol Bears player ratings from Northampton Saints thrashing – ‘One of the best in the PREM’<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\nLam, said: “Bates did his hamstring, I think it was when he accelerated onto the pass. [in the build-up to Kieran Marmion’s second try].”<\/p>\n
Lam continued: \u201cTom Jordan was called off by the independent doctor to have a HIA test, and he failed his test. I would fail the test. They are a hard test to nail when you\u2019re fatigued. I think Tom will be okay. For him to dive, slide and catch a ball, you\u2019ve got to be in a pretty good space to do that. That\u2019s the way our game is, and I understand it’s all about safety, so I understand that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rees-Zammit only making the bench initially had raised a few eyebrows when the team was announced on Friday, but Lam explained the winger had returned to the club feeling the effects of Wales’ gruelling Autumn international campaign. He said: “He wasn’t able to train this week. He had a few knocks and niggles.”<\/p>\n
The Bears were forced into a late change on the day of the game as hooker Gabriel Oghre was replaced by 23-year-old Tomas Gwilliam on the bench just before kick-off. Oghre had a stomach bug for most of the week, and Lam explained his why he did not want to risk him.<\/p>\n
Lam said: \u201cHe got a stomach bug and didn\u2019t train Tuesday or Thursday. He only arrived with us today. I think we looked at it and I just made the call today, we\u2019ve only got the three fit hookers, and I didn\u2019t want to risk it. I had a lot of confidence that Harry Thacker was on form and Tomas Gwilliam deserved a chance, so I backed him. Going into a game like that and he gets injured; I wasn\u2019t prepared to take that risk.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bears now sit fifth in the Gallagher PREM table with 18 points, just three points away from the play-off stages. They now have a break in league action and will travel to Scarlets next Saturday in the opening round of the European Investec Champions Cup group stages.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bristol Bears beat Northampton Saints 46-12 at Ashton Gate on Saturday in Round Six of the 2025\/26 Gallagher…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":604540,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8818],"tags":[381,21571,748,393,4884,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-604539","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-bristol","8":"tag-bristol","9":"tag-bristol-bears","10":"tag-britain","11":"tag-england","12":"tag-great-britain","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115642223665089864","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604539","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=604539"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604539\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/604540"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=604539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=604539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=604539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/0_GettyImages-2249080168.jpg\")
Louis Rees-Zammit of Bristol Bears (Photo by Simon Galloway\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n