Bath Rugby injury latest ahead of Benetton: Ben Spencer, Archie Griffin, Sam Underhill, Will Stuart

Bath look set to travel to Benetton on Sunday without a number of their star players as head of rugby Johann van Graan looks to rotate his squad to be able to keep fighting on three fronts this season.

The Blue, Black and White are currently top of the Gallagher Premiership after seven of the 18 rounds and top in their Premiership Rugby Cup pool at the midway stage, but lost their opening Investec Champions Cup pool stage match to La Rochelle 20-24 on Friday night, meaning they likely require some points from the trip to Italy this weekend to stay in the hunt for the last-16 knock out rounds, with four of the six teams in each pool progressing. With European monster like Leinster and La Rochelle in Pool 2 with them, a high seeding was always going to be a big ask.

But Bath look likely to the Stadio Comunale di Monigo without their first-choice half-back pairing of Finn Russell and Ben Spencer. Scotland star Russell has been away on holiday this week and club captain Spencer pulled out of facing La Rochelle late in the day with a tight hamstring.

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Speaking on Tuesday, van Graan said: “We will use our squad. We will make some changes to the team. As I said three weeks ago we have got 12 games in this block. The Champions Cup is obviously a big competition, we have got three big games coming up in the Premiership over the Christmas period as well. We are going to keep using our squad and we back our squad.”

Providing an injury update on Spencer and England flanker Sam Underhill, who injured his ankle while scoring a try against Japan on international duty this Autumn, van Graan said: “Ben is doing some rehab here on his hamstring, we will make our decision on him later in the week.

“Sam is in the building, Beno [Obano] is back on the training field. We have picked up one or two knocks and bruises from the weekend. Archie Griffin looks like he has injured his shoulder. We will do some more research on what that looks like over the next couple of weeks.”

With Spencer and Russell unlikely to feature this weekend, van Graan will likely call upon Louis Schreuder and Orlando Bailey as his nine and ten combination, with changes in the front row probable as well. Wales international tighthead Archie Griffin’s injury is an untimely one with Will Stuart set to be rested this weekend having started all four of England’s Autumn Nations series game and Bath’s last two matches. Springbok powerhouse Thomas du Toit will likely switch from one to three in the front row, with England U20s star Billy Sela also sidelined with a shoulder injury.

Centre Ollie Lawrence was rested last weekend, having racked up plenty of minutes with England this Autumn to earn a mandatory weekend off, but van Graan was purposefully vague about whether he will fly out with the team this weekend.

He was far more clear on Alfie Barbeary’s situation after the powerful number eight suffered a second whiplash concussion injury last month. He reiterated, “We will take our time with Alfie. He was back in the building and has done some return-to-play bits this week. He has been on the training field for certain parts of training, but we will look after him. I am waiting until Rory Murray, our head of medical, gives me the green light to get him back to full training and then to playing.”