Rugby Bristol set up Sunday showdown in play-off chase
Irish are a tough team. They drew here (last December), and they had a good win at Exeter tonight. Our focus is ourselves
PAT Lam has targeted Bristol’s “best performance ever” as the Gallagher Premiership play-off race builds towards a thrilling finish.
A record 40-3 league win for Bristol against Leicester leaves them chasing one of three remaining play-off places with Wasps, Bath and Sale Sharks.
A repeat performance on Sunday - the regular season’s final day - against London Irish should set Bristol up for a top-four spot, although they will also require Wasps to lose against Exeter, or Bath or Sale to not get a bonuspoint victory against Saracens and Worcester, respectively.
“Our aim is to have our best performance ever on Sunday at London Irish, and come 5pm we will know if that is good enough or not,” Bristol rugby director Lam said.
“Irish are a tough team. They drew here (last December), and they had a good win at Exeter tonight. Our focus is ourselves.
“The five points were what we were after tonight, so job done.
“We are happy with some aspects of the performance, but certainly not satisfied, as we made some silly mistakes because of turnovers.
“We built the game nicely, but we lost nine balls in contact and took our foot off the pedal. We didn’t kick on as much as we wanted to after the fourth try.”
Bristol’s pack prospered against an inexperienced Leicester outfit at Ashton Gate, with No 8 Nathan Hughes, hooker Bryan Byrne and flanker Dan Thomas all scoring tries in the first 45 minutes.
Full-back Ioan Lloyd also touched down and replacement Harry Thacker crossed against his former club before Bristol collected an 80th-minute penalty try.
Fly-half Callum Sheedy kicked four conversions, and Leicester’s solitary scoring response came from Zack Henry’s 24th-minute penalty as they crashed to a 14th
league defeat of the campaign. Leicester rugby director Geordan Murphy said: “It was always going to be challenging. We took a young team and Bristol were chasing a bonus-point win.
“We knew it would be challenging for everyone completing these games in such a short period, but you find out a lot about people on occasions like this. We put Bristol under a bit of pressure in the first 20 minutes, but we couldn’t sustain it. We’ve had an opportunity to blood young players, and I thought the guys didn’t let their heads drop.”
Match report - Page 37