Bath Rugby's trip to London Irish on Saturday is still too early for Carl Fearns to make his comeback from injury, according to first-team coach Neal Hatley.
Flanker Fearns has not played since suffering a hamstring problem in the warm-up ahead of Bath's Aviva Premiership win over Newcastle Falcons in early February.
The early indication was that the 24-year-old would be out for just a fortnight, but he has now been on the sidelines for six weeks.
Forwards boss Hatley says Fearns will not feature in the Premiership clash at the Madejski Stadium this weekend and that the visit of Sale Sharks next Friday is a more likely date for his return.
"I think Carl is only another a week away. He has been out for a while and with Francois Louw, Matt Garvey and Leroy Houston more rested it doesn't make sense [to play him]," said Hatley.
"It's such a big run-in with Northampton, Quins and Sale all in that top six. We know we'll need Fearnsy firing and with at least a week to ten days training in him.
"We have to be fair to him as well, we can't just pitch him up. He needs to put some training time in and then he'll come into the equation.
"Rob Webber and Jonathan Joseph are out of their boots as well, so we could be heading into the final bit of the season getting international calibre players back for the run-in, which is brilliant."
Bath return to action against Irish after a rare weekend off. The defeat to Exeter Chiefs in the LV= Cup semi-finals on March 9 meant they were without a fixture last weekend.
Even without Fearns Bath still boast a quality back-row division and the additional rest period has given them extra time to recover from what has so far proved a demanding season.
Hatley said: "People like Leroy and Matt have played an unbelievable amount of rugby, so it's been great for them.
"I don't think there's ever an upside to losing a semi-final but it did give them the chance to recover."
