Bristol confirm the damaging extent of Harry Randall's ankle injury with England

Bristol have confirmed that Harry Randall suffered a syndesmosis injury to his ankle while training with England and will be out of action for up to eight weeks. The 23-year-old Bristol No9 was called up by Eddie Jones for the first time in January when he announced his 28-strong squad for the Guinness Six Nations tournament. 

However, having not been involved in the matchday squads for the opening two games against Scotland and Italy, the uncapped Randall was then injured at training on the weekend of February 20. 

Lam was unsure of the extent of the damage when he spoke at his midweek media conference last week, saying: "I’ll comment once I know the length of time he is going to be out for."

Now that length of rehabilitation is known, leaving the Bristol coach frustrated that what could have been an incredible developmental experience for his youngster didn't turn out the way they would have wanted.

"Unfortunately, Harry is going to be out another seven, eight weeks, which is frustrating," reported Lam. "He had a syndesmosis injury at training with England. It was that weekend we were playing London Irish and he was on the break. So he did it there.

"At the moment it is eight weeks (rehab). The surgeon is comfortable that it doesn't need surgery, otherwise it would have been twelve weeks gone. We saw him and a couple of others down there in the gym this morning (Wednesday), so he is trekking away on that road to recovery.

"The biggest challenge we are going to face certainly is Harry has played no rugby since January 9. By the time he gets back it is going to be twelve weeks, three months of no rugby at all, so that is going to be our challenge to get him back." Randall was replaced in the England squad for their round three preparations against Wales last week by Northampton’s Alex Mitchell, another uncapped half-back.