The two-cap England international winger has been absent since May

Bath head of rugby Johann van Graan confirmed that England international winger WIll Muir hasn’t suffered any setback in his recovery from shoulder surgery but that his rehab has been slower than everyone hoped.

Muir injured his shoulder last May in Bath’s 38-26 Investec Champions Cup defeat to Bordeaux-Begles and quickly underwent surgery, which has ruled him out of action ever since.

With the club’s official injury update on Tuesday from head of medical Rory Murray saying the winger is now on a ‘week-by-week’ assessment, Bath head of rugby van Graan provided a more detailed update on Muir’s recovery

Van Graan told SomersetLive: “I'd say it'll still take some time; he and Tom de Glanville are doing in bits of training this week, but I don't foresee either of the two of them featuring this weekend [against Gloucester].

“Will has been unfortunate. His last game was the Bordeaux semi-final, so whenever we put him back, I'll have to make a decision about what does that look like for a number of weeks.”

Muir, 30, made his England debut in the summer of 2025 after an impressive couple of years for Bath, starting twice in the 2-0 series win away in Argentina.

However, since then he has been hampered by injuries, suffering an ankle injury in the Blue, Black and White’s final pre-season game ahead of the 2025/26 season, which required surgery and saw him miss half the campaign.

In all, the man the fans and players call ‘The Horse’, has scored 43 tries in 90 games for Bath, but just 11 of those appearances came last season.

Providing some more detail on Muir’s recovery, van Graan said: “It's always been a complicated surgery.

“It's nothing new, it's nothing different.. The surgery itself went very well.

“Obviously, with these things, you need to get through certain steps in your rehab, so he's getting stuck on one or two specific steps. So, we need to move past them.

“He's in good spirits, but ultimately, as I always say to the players, they're rugby players, they're not rugby trainers.

“Horse wants to get back onto the pitch, and he's one of our most important players, and we’ve not had him for the most part of 2026.”

Thanks to Muir’s remarkable abilities under the high ball, Bath are able to utilise an entirely different game plan when he is on the pitch, with Ben Spencer and Finn Russell putting up contestable kicks for the winger to chase and come back to earth with.

Without him, that string to their bow has been snapped, or certainly become less effective, limiting van Graan's tactics.