Resolved! The issue was not the diced sprite.
When querying the bounds (upon instantiation) the sprite was in the incorrect state. The cause of confusion was I saw the sprite displaying the correct new image, yet the supposed size was much smaller then expected.
It's strange as we set the clip to play on instantiation and I think this was the issue as the animation data being out of date, pointing at a sprite that is no longer in the collection. Not sure how it was displaying the correct sprite though?
Sorry the details are hard to explain... if I can answer any further queries on what we saw I'll be happy to help.