diff --git a/medcat-v2/tests/components/addons/meta_cat/test_bert_meta_cat.py b/medcat-v2/tests/components/addons/meta_cat/test_bert_meta_cat.py
index 0e82610a..cd6b811e 100644
--- a/medcat-v2/tests/components/addons/meta_cat/test_bert_meta_cat.py
+++ b/medcat-v2/tests/components/addons/meta_cat/test_bert_meta_cat.py
@@ -7,7 +7,6 @@
 import unittest
 import tempfile
 import os
-from functools import partial
 
 import transformers
 
@@ -38,13 +37,28 @@ def guard(*args, **kwargs):
 #       in such a situation
 @contextmanager
 def force_hf_download():
+    with tempfile.TemporaryDirectory() as temp_dir:
+        with _force_hf_download(temp_dir):
+            yield
+
+
+@contextmanager
+def _force_hf_download(temp_dir_path: str):
     orig_from_pretrained = transformers.BertModel.from_pretrained
-    transformers.BertModel.from_pretrained = partial(
-        orig_from_pretrained, force_download=True)
+
+    method_calls = []
+
+    def replacement_method(*args, **kwargs):
+        method_calls.append((len(args), len(kwargs)))
+        return orig_from_pretrained(
+            *args, force_download=True,
+            cache_dir=temp_dir_path, **kwargs)
+    transformers.BertModel.from_pretrained = replacement_method
     try:
         yield
     finally:
         transformers.BertModel.from_pretrained = orig_from_pretrained
+        assert method_calls, "BertModel.from_pretrained should be called"
 
 
 class BERTMetaCATTests(unittest.TestCase):
@@ -64,6 +78,8 @@ def setUpClass(cls):
         cls.meta_cat = meta_cat.MetaCATAddon.create_new(cls.cnf, cls.tokenizer)
 
         cls.temp_dir = tempfile.TemporaryDirectory()
+        # change model variant to force a network call upon load
+        cls.cnf.model.model_variant = 'prajjwal1/bert-small'
         cls.mc_save_path = os.path.join(cls.temp_dir.name, "bert_meta_cat")
         serialise('dill', cls.meta_cat, cls.mc_save_path)