In the following weeks and games, the number of casualties increased.
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At the height of the injury crisis, Bristol were without 15 riders available and struggled to organize a training session.
Players were brought in on short-term loans, academy players were sent to matches and director of rugby Pat Lam admitted their chances of reaching the end-of-season play-offs had already skyrocketed.
Fast forward to mid-March and the Bears are third in the table, having enjoyed one of their best winters ever.
They return to Prem action on Sunday at Leicester, having won their last five league games since the end of November, with victories in three of the four Champions Cup games in between.
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“We all hear these statements about things you can’t control, but the question is how you adapt and react to them,” Lam told BBC Sport.
“The best thing that happened to us after losing those three guys (Harry Randall, Gabriel Ibitoye and AJ MacGinty) in the first round was playing Saracens at full strength – they beat us up that day (scoring) 50 points.
“It made us realize that we had changed a lot; we had to. We peeled away layers of our game to get these fundamental things done really well and slowly rebuilt them.”
‘The meetings seemed empty: there was no one here’
In a contact sport like rugby, every team will have to deal with multiple injuries at some point during a campaign.
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But the number of players missing from Bristol pushed their team, which was already the smallest in the league, to the limit.
Prop Jake Woolmore said: “Sometimes we would be in meetings and feel empty because there was no one here, the internationals would be away for a few moments and you would think: ‘Do we have a team?’
“It was a little strange.”
Training sessions in which coaches had difficulty forming two teams could also be “tough.”
Woolmore added: “Everyone you’re fit is probably in the starting XV and then you’ve got guys running around in the opposition – everyone has to step up.
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“You might have fixtures running on the wing for a session or for a drill, everyone has to focus that week and do their part.
“Then we have to ‘cotton’ the guys who are fit, because we can’t afford anyone (else) to leave.”
Captain Fitz Harding said the best they could do was reduce their game plan to the basics.
“When we are missing key drivers of the game, the most important thing is that we are all on the same page,” he said.
“The most cohesive teams are usually the best, so the challenge for us was how to mitigate the level of cohesion in our team and the answer we came up with was to make everything as simple as possible.”
Sam Worsley scored seven conversions (a Prem record for a Bristol player) and scored a try in the win against Gloucester (Getty Images)
Lam has repeatedly said that when a player becomes unavailable, he does not dwell on what he has lost, but rather looks at who is next in line to step up.
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Often, that meant calling up academy players to fill the gaps.
Against Northampton in November, four youth players participated in matchday 23.
Hooker Tomas Gwilliam was making his Prem debut, while back Aidan Boshoff and prop Jimmy Halliwell had played just four top-flight games between them. Bristol thrashed the Saints 46-12.
Academy fly-half Sam Worsley also filled in during the absences of MacGinty and Scotland international Tom Jordan for five games in the autumn.
The 22-year-old, who began the season playing for Dings Crusaders in the third-tier National League One, kicked a last-minute penalty to seal a narrow victory against Exeter.
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He then scored a try and scored 14 points in the victory against Gloucester, one of two games in which he was named player of the match.
“When young guys who haven’t necessarily had a lot of playing time step up and put in a performance that leads to a result, it just fills the group with confidence about where we are as a whole team,” Harding said.
While fielding so many developmental players wouldn’t necessarily have been the plan at the start of the season, the sink-or-swim approach has helped create strength in depth now that the campaign is coming to a head.
Add to that the players who have returned from injuries in recent weeks, and it’s no surprise that the mood in Bears camp as the league returns is optimistic.
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“Training was delicious (on Wednesday) and that’s because everyone wants it, I also feel like they’ve earned a chance now too,” Woolmore said.
“No one is happy not to be involved. That desire and hunger will only do us favors as we move forward.”
Lam reiterated that the injury crisis has been the biggest challenge he has faced as a coach.
Even when it seemed the worst was behind us, during the eight-week Prem break came news that Bristol’s top two locks, Joe Batley and Pablo Rubiolo, were ruled out – Rubiolo for the rest of the season.
Injuries seem destined to be the story of the team’s season, no matter what happens between now and June.
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Bristol have fielded 43 players in the Prem so far – fewer than Northampton (44), Gloucester (45) and Harlequins (46) – and Harding believes the fact that so many have contributed has also brought the group closer together.
“It’s really nice for the team to feel like everyone played a big part in determining where the team is,” he said.
“We’ve had a lot of guys contributing in big games and scoring big points in those games. This has brought the whole team together.”
