Gloucester prop stakes claim to be biggest badass in the Premiership
As Gloucester’s Ruan Ackermann won a penalty in the final play of the match against Bath at the Rec on Saturday, prop Jamal Ford-Robinson could be seen standing in the defensive line.
That does not seem like anything special until you realise he had been down and receiving treatment earlier in that same passage of play as Bath chased a match winning try with the scores at 21-17 to the visitors. Bath kept the ball for phase after phase with the clock in the red, which gave the tighthead the chance to rejoin his side in the defensive effort.
That is pretty impressive given that he was clearly injured and had his arm in a makeshift sling after the match. It is made even more impressive when he revealed on Thursday that his pectoral muscle had actually been ripped off the bone and that he is set to undergo surgery next week. That suddenly makes his decision to carry on defending certifiably badass. Fortunately the 29-year-old was not called upon to make a tackle, but this was still a huge effort given the extra damage he could have done to himself.
welp.
just seen the specialist.
pec is off the bone.
surgery next week.
fun times.
🙃
— Jamal Ford-Robinson (@jfordrob) October 13, 2022
Though Gloucester came away with the win, there were casualties with centre Mark Atkinson also being ruled out for the rest of the season with a knee injury.
After the news of Atkinson’s injury was confirmed, Gloucester chief operating officer Alex Brown said: “We are hugely disappointed to lose someone of Mark’s quality for the remainder of the season.
“He is a key part of our squad and will remain an important voice for us behind the scenes.
“We know that he will be working extremely diligently with our medical team during this period off the pitch to recover as quickly as he can.”
