LIST: 8 Lions available to return to Premiership action this weekend

A number of stars were given a delayed return to Premiership action after their involvement on the British & Irish Lions tour, with an initial rest period of 10 weeks meaning they couldn't play again until October 18.

An application has been submitted to the Player Performance Management Group (PPMG) - a sub-committee of the PGB - and providing they give the player the green light, with obvious concerns around player welfare, they could return to action this weekend.

Here are the five players who are thought to be in contention for their first start of the 2021/22 Gallagher Premiership season.

The fly-half failed to feature in any of the Springboks Tests but did dazzle when he played the full 80 minutes in a 49-3 warm-up win over the Stormers.

He would be available for this weekend, but won't be featuring simply because Quins don't have a game due to the league being a 13 team division.

It is understood Tom Curry will return for Sale’s Friday night clash with Harlequins on October 15,

The 28-year-old has been training at the Bears High Performance Centre and director of rugby Pat Lam has revealed that Sinckler has requested to play in Friday's night's West Country derby against Bath.

"All the Lions players have requested to get back playing, across the board," Lam revealed to Bristol Live.

"It's all driven by each player, each player makes the decision themselves.

"What we'll never do is tell a player he has to come back and play. It's up to the player. Kyle is one of them who has requested he wants to play and then it goes to the RFU and then ourselves.

On Lawes, who could join Wales and Lions No 10 Dan Biggar back in the Saints side for their game against London Irish this Saturday, Northampton’s attack coach Sam Vesty said: "Courtney has not played many games of rugby, is lightly-raced, has had a pre-season and is ready to go, and wants to go. Everyone is happy with that being the case.

"We do a lot of data-gathering around players’ GPS, days off, and such. There’s no point keeping all of that and when it comes to decisions around players you treat them all the same."