Gloucester Rugby host Harlequins at Kingsholm on Saturday in Round Six of the 2025/26 Gallagher PREM
06:13, 26 Nov 2025
Gloucester’s Seb Atkinson (Photo by Bob Bradford – CameraSport via Getty Images)
Gloucester Rugby are set for a trickle of injured first-team stars to return to the fray this weekend, with more to follow in the coming weeks, director of rugby George Skivington has confirmed.
Former club captain Lewis Ludlow and England international centre duo Seb Atkinson and Will Joseph are amongst those who are in contention to line up against Harlequins at Kingsholm on Saturday in a battle between the Gallagher PREM’s eighth and ninth best teams, with both sides looking to kick-start their respective seasons and start climbing the table.
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Despite having been replaced as captain this season by Welsh star Tomos Williams, Ludlow’s leadership has been missed during Gloucester’s torrid start to their 2025/26 league campaign, which has seen the Cherry and Whites lose all five of their games.
The backrower has been absent with a broken hand but is back in the selection mix along with Joseph, who missed out on England A duty this Autumn due to an injury he suffered in the 39-12 defeat to Exeter Chiefs in October, and Atkinson, who injured his knee and hip in the 38-17 loss away at Bath to rule him out of England contention in the Quilter Nations Series having worn the 12 shirt for his country during the successful summer tour to Argentina. A player of the match performance from Bath’s Max Ojomoh from inside centre in England’s 27-23 win over Argentina on Sunday was an uncomfortable watch.
Skivington said: “What’s your luck? You are injured, and someone else comes in and is the man of the match [in your position]. But Seb is such a highly motivated, top, top professional. I don’t think he’ll flinch too much, but I know he’s desperate to play. I know he’s desperate to get back out there. I know he’s definitely one of the players who has not enjoyed sitting on the sidelines. He’s our vice-captain for a reason. It’s great to have him back on the training pitch, for sure.
“Luds [Lewis Ludlow] is back, Jack Clement is not quite there yet, but we’ve got quite a lot of players doing bits and pieces of training. We’ve got a few back out training this week, we’ve got a few lads, they’ll slowly trickle in now over the next three or four weeks. We’ve sort of got to the other side of it [the injury crisis]. Lots of those big hitters are coming back in.”
Almost forgot former talisman Val Rapava-Ruskin has also returned to training in recent weeks following a flare-up of his troublesome knee problems on the eve of the season.
Despite not wanting to discuss the fitness of injury-ravaged loosehead prop until he runs out on the field again, Skivington divulged: “Val’s doing some training. So again, I don’t want to give you any false hope or too much positivity, but he is doing some training. He is smiling.”
Skivington also confirmed the club’s Welsh and Argentinian internationals have checked back in at Kingsholm in good health following their duty for their country.
Centre Max Llewellyn, scrum-half Tomos Williams and lock Freddie Thomas have all been in action for Wales, but will be on club duty this weekend despite their country facing the World Champion Springboks at Cardiff in an out-of-the-international-window contest.
Matias Alemanno didn’t feature against England at the weekend but ran out for Argentina against Wales.
Skivington concluded: “Matty’s always a great version of himself when he comes back. The Welsh lads are always full of beans. I think they’re really happy to be back in the building. We had a great injection from the England A lads last week, and they’ve had a great week. It was a lot of fun. We’ve had a couple of really good training sessions and now it is Quins.”
Those England A players included young prop Afo Fasogbon, fly-half Charlie Atkinson, full-back Ben Redshaw, scrum-half Caolan Englefield and prop Ciaran Knight, although the latter didn’t make the match day squad against either the All Blacks XV or Spain.
