Du Preez faces long spell out but 'magic' Green impresses

Bath are set to be without number eight Dan du Preez for a "considerable amount of time" due to a torn hamstring.The South African moved to Bath from Sale this summer and suffered the injury prior to their Champions Cup defeat by Montpellier last week. "He unfortunately tore his hamstring on the Thursday before the game, which will rule him out for a considerable amount of time," head of rugby Johann van Graan said.Bath have back-to-back Prem games away at Gloucester and Sale before the league takes a four-week break for the autumn internationals. As well as missing Du Preez for the European encounter, Bath also were without back-row forward Miles Reid although Van Graan said he expects Reid to be back for the trip to Kingsholm."Miles was in training a bit earlier, he's got to go through his return to contact bits," he said. "We'll see by Thursday whether we're going to go with him or not."However while Du Preez and Reid have been absent, academy graduate Arthur Green has started the past two games at number eight and has been in exceptional form, scoring three tries.The 22-year-old has previously only started six Prem games for the club since his debut in 2024 and Van Graan said he had been "impressed". "How good has he been?" Van Graan said. "Ball in hand, he's had some magic moments. There's a line that he ran, if you look at the high camera just before Ollie's [Lawrence] try, where he was moving sideways and backwards and he saw Finn [Russell], came and changed direction; he kept his feet perfectly."He hits the line and he's got tremendous feet and this ability to be in the right place at the right time. We saw that in the Northampton game and again the try that he scored that wasn't pre-planned, that was just a player that was ready to seize the opportunity. "I've been very impressed with him, his biggest attribute is he's got a natural aptitude for the game."