{"id":639037,"date":"2026-04-29T20:08:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-29T20:08:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/639037\/"},"modified":"2026-04-29T20:08:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-29T20:08:12","slug":"bordeaux-begles-v-bath-isaac-mears-could-be-called-on-for-semi-final","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/639037\/","title":{"rendered":"Bordeaux-Begles v Bath: Isaac Mears could be called on for semi-final"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bath could give 18-year-old prospect Isaac Mears his first-team debut in Sunday’s Champions Cup semi-final away to Bordeaux-Begles after a sudden spate of injuries hit their scrum-half stocks.<\/p>\n

First-choice nine Ben Spencer was initially named in Bath’s side to face Harlequins on 18 April, but withdrew before kick-off with a shoulder complaint.<\/p>\n

Despite Johann van Graan’s initial optimism that the England international’s injury was a minor problem, Spencer is only “touch and go” for the club’s first elite European semi-final in 20 years.<\/p>\n

Back-up scrum-half Bernard van der Linde has had surgery on his ankle after being forced off 10 minutes into his first Prem start against Northampton on Saturday, leaving Tom Carr-Smith as the only fit senior specialist in the position.<\/p>\n

Mears, the son of former Bath, England and British and Irish Lions hooker Lee, only signed his first professional contract earlier this month and his most-recent appearance was for the University of Bath’s all-conquering student side., external<\/a><\/p>\n

Van Graan has hinted that, while he has promoted Mears into the senior set-up, he is also considering a leftfield positional switch as another means of covering scrum-half.<\/p>\n

The 46-year-old South African alluded to the Springboks’ victory in the 2023 Rugby World Cup final, where their gamble of a ‘seven-one’ bench with no direct replacement for Faf de Klerk paid off in a 12-11 victory.<\/p>\n

“One bit that the group knows, but the outside world doesn’t, is we go through multiple situational plays in training sessions throughout the year,” he said.<\/p>\n

“In a worst-case scenario, you might see somebody play at nine that’s never played at nine.<\/p>\n

“But if you go back to the World Cup final back in 2023, one team decided to go without a nine, so there’s many different things that we could do.<\/p>\n

“We’ve got faith that Spenny [Spencer] will be fine on the weekend and whether he or any other player is not, we’ll be fluid and adaptable.<\/p>\n

“There’s always two choices you can make with injuries \u2013 you can feel sorry for yourself or you can make a plan. And this group is exceptional at making plans.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bath could give 18-year-old prospect Isaac Mears his first-team debut in Sunday’s Champions Cup semi-final away to Bordeaux-Begles…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":639038,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-639037","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/639037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=639037"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/639037\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/639038"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=639037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=639037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=639037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}