Pat Lam is set to bring in a second fly-half on loan in the space of a month with his Bristol Bears currently four number 10s down heading into a weekend where they play twice in the space of 20 hours.

Irish international Harry Byrne, who arrived from Leinster on an initial three-month loan earlier in January, will lead the Bears from fly-half this weekend against Newcastle Falcons in this final Gallagher Premiership game before the Six Nations gets under way and club rugby switches its attention to the Premiership Rugby Cup. Byrne is also set to be given plenty of game time throughout the final pool stage games of the cup competition to allow him to embed into the Bears’ shapes and systems to be ready for when the Premiership resumes in March with Lam setting his sights on going on a run all the way to the final.

READ MORE: Bristol Bears might have been naïve but we should be proud of their European efforts

READ MORE: Bristol Bears might have been naïve but we should be proud of their European efforts

READ MORE: Bristol City player ratings vs Sheffield Wednesday as late McCrorie goal secures point for Reds

But next weekend the Bears host Queensland Reds on Friday night before traveling to Ampthill in the Premiership Rugby Cup on Saturday and Lam is in need of extra recruits to be able to field two squads over two days with specialist fly-halves AJ MacGinty (knee) and Sam Worsley (finger) sidelined along with their cover Max Malins (Achilles) and James Williams (hand). When a similar problem arose in the Autumn with Bristol facing Australia A and Bath two days running, Lam opted to run full-back Rich Lane at number 10 for the first time in his career but to ill effect with the three-quarter understandably struggling to get the backline ticking. In his natural position at 15 last weekend, he was named in the Investec Champions Cup Dream Team for Round Four.

Discussing the look for reinforcements at 10, Lam said: “It is looking good. Our recruitment team are on it. We have met with a couple of people and we hope to have something locked up by the end of the week ready for next week.

“Harry needs more games. He will only get better with the more he plays so he will play through the Prem Cup. It is important for us to get to the play-offs in the Prem Cup because if you don’t there is a risk you won’t have any rugby for a whole month if you don’t make those quarter-finals. If that happens we would have to go and look for a game elsewhere.”

Bristol will be without the services of scrum-half Harry Randall and loose head prop Ellis Genge this weekend with the pair away in camp with England to prepare for the Six Nations which kicks off a week later, with the Bears pair hoping to be involved against Ireland in Dublin. Bottom of the table Newcastle don’t have any players in the current England squad but this week did see star winger Adam Radwan depart for Leicester Tigers in a surprise midseason exit.