{"id":947693,"date":"2026-05-09T06:02:26","date_gmt":"2026-05-09T06:02:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/947693\/"},"modified":"2026-05-09T06:02:26","modified_gmt":"2026-05-09T06:02:26","slug":"bristol-bears-vs-saracens-live-play-by-play-gallagher-prem-updates-and-team-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/947693\/","title":{"rendered":"Bristol Bears vs Saracens LIVE: Play-by-play Gallagher PREM updates and team news"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pat Lam has revealed Argentina international back Benjamin Elizalde looks to have already played his last game for Bristol Bears<\/a> after being sent out on loan.<\/p>\n

The 21-year-old, four-cap Pumas international will join Newcastle Red Bulls in the summer after two seasons at Bristol Bears, where he made 27 appearances, the last of which came against Sale Sharks back in February in the PREM Rugby Cup.<\/p>\n

Despite the Bears having suffered injuries in the backline in the last month, with full-backs Rich Lane and Noah Neward pulling up with minor hamstring issues in the 52-19 win at Newcastle two weeks ago, Bristol\u2019s battle to get their average English Qualified Players numbers above the minimum target of 15 per matchday squad has led to fringe player Elizalde being squeezed out of contention.<\/p>\n

Bristol director of rugby Pat Lam explained:<\/p>\n

\u201cAs you\u2019d be aware, the EQP (England Qualified Player) numbers have been one of the biggest issues.\u201cYou have to average 15 players in a matchday squad over the season, and we\u2019re below that at the moment. I\u2019m trying to catch up on that because you have to finish the season with that average. In some games, I need to make sure I\u2019ve got more than 15 English players in the squad.\u201cThat\u2019s why I\u2019ve allowed Benjamin Elizalde to go back to Argentina on loan so he can play rugby before the Argentinian international window, because those guys can\u2019t play in the Championship or National 1.\u201cMy most important thing is how these guys continue to develop, and because he\u2019s non-EQP and can\u2019t play any rugby here, I wanted to give him a chance to be with his family and play in the Argentinian Super Rugby Americas.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Lam has previously outlined the rugby black hole young international players find themselves in if they are struggling to earn a place in a Gallagher PREM first team, due to regulations designed to keep the lower pathway into professional rugby clear for English players. As such, Elizalde has joined Tarucas.<\/p>\n

Teams that fail to hit PREM Rugby\u2019s EQP player targets face fines of up to \u00a3250,000.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Benjamin Elizalde of Bristol Bears is challenged by Ross Molony of Bath Rugby. (Photo by Alex Burstow\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pat Lam has revealed Argentina international back Benjamin Elizalde looks to have already played his last game for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":947694,"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-947693","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\/116543104521423844","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/947693","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=947693"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/947693\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/947694"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=947693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=947693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=947693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}