Bears show their teeth during grinding win against Warriors
BRISTOL BEARS VS WORCESTER WARRIORS, GALLAGHER PREMIERSHIP on Bristol’s Gallagher Premiership win over Worcester at Ashton Gate
BRISTOL Bears’ 30-13 victory over Worcester Warriors on Saturday should refine how Pat Lam’s side are viewed in the eyes of the rugby public.
Most believe the Bears to be entertain-at-all-costs showmen. A sort of Super Rugby-style/Barbarians love-child playing their own brand of rugby against pragmatic bores. But that couldn’t be further from the truth.
This a club and group of players who are learning the canny knack of winning, even if that means doing it ‘ugly.’
With Charles Piutau, Luke Morahan and Harry Thacker sidelined until the New Year, and Callum Sheedy, Max Malins and Semi Radradra away on international duty the majority of the world class X-factor players in this special squad were missing at Ashton Gate on Saturday.
But it mattered not, because Bristol battered the most workmanlike team in the Gallagher Premiership into submission with their mauling game while excellently countering what was thrown at them by their former forwards coach Jonathan Thomas who swapped camps in the summer.
What can certainly be said is Worcester Warriors are no longer a bogey side.
Until last year, Bristol Bears had never done the double over the Warriors, and until Saturday they had never won three in a row.
But inspired by new Welsh international full-back Ioan Lloyd, the Bears extended their winning run.
Fresh from winning his first Welsh cap and becoming Bristol’s youngest ever international Lloyd, still just 19 years-old, will make plenty of headlines for his sparkling display on his return to club rugby, providing a moment of magic to put Piers O’Conor away for the opening try and stopping an almost certain Worcester score with an outstanding try-saving tackle on Nick David in the first half.
But it was the relentless power display from the forwards which delivered the result in this arm wrestle, forcing their collective way over the whitewash with mauls for Bryan Byrne and Siale Piutau to score and earning a penalty try from Ian Tempest who also handed out two yellow cards to Worcester’s Andrew Kitchener and Conor Carey for illegally pulling down the Bears’ most potent weapon on the day.
Yes, Worcester had their chances in the contest, scoring tries through Tom Howe and former Bristol man Marco Mama - while Howe was unfortunate to have another effort disallowed after it was adjudged Oli
Morris had knocked the ball forward which landed in the winger’s hands, while dislodging it from Piutau in a tackle. But all three opportunities came from Bristol mistakes.
Worcester’s opening try came from broken field with fly-half Billy Searle regathering the loose ball after his attempted grubber kick was blocked by Dan Thomas and then pin balled off Henry Purdy into his hands. The former Bristol man then intelligently ghosted through a pack of forwards, with some potential blocking on Yann Thomas missed, before drawing full-back Lloyd and feeding Howe to race in for his second try in as many weeks.
The visitors’ second score came from turnover ball as replacement Ethan Waller pounced on the pill when it squirted out of a Bears ruck, allowing his captain Ted Hill
to stride clear of the defence before passing to Mama who dived over the line in his own thunderous ‘Ash Splash’ style.
That handed Worcester the lead for the first time in the match after 44 minutes and 49 seconds, but it lasted just five minutes and 23 seconds before the Bears struck back and then accelerated away.
Had Howe’s second ‘try’ in the 64th minute been given then it would have been a tighter, nervier finish but in the end it was a relatively routine day at the office for the Bears in the most competitive professional rugby league in the world.
The Bears host Northampton Saints on Friday night with their Round Three opponents without a win yet, having been battered 49-29 by Harlequins this weekend.
Speaking after the game, Bristol director of rugby Pat Lam praised his side’s physicality, saying Bristol’s forward power was the difference between winning and losing.
“We were unlucky to lose the game in the last three minutes against Wasps last weekend and I think today was important for us to control the game and put in a better performance which we did,” said Lam.
“I’m really pleased we got the five points and now we move on to next week.
“What I was really pleased about was our physicality. There’s a lot of history between Worcester and Bristol and it’s fair to say that
they’ve completely dominated us physically in the past.
“The last time we played them at their ground and now here we’ve been good physically. If we don’t bring that physicality it doesn’t matter what we bring tactically it won’t matter.
“But physically we were excellent out there. We were a bit sloppy at times and tactically we didn’t get a few things right, but we just knew if we got in the right areas of the park and stayed patient then we’d be okay, and we were.”
Worcester director of rugby Alan Solomons insisted his side were the architects of their own downfall.
He said: “It was very disappointing. We had a lot of opportunities today which we wasted.
“In both halves we were camped in their 22 and we didn’t close out those opportunities we created.
“We had a similar situation last week which we worked very hard at addressing in the week but unfortunately the players didn’t adjust to that.
“It’s early in the season and we haven’t had a normal pre-season of six weeks. We’ve had a minimal pre-season so things will take time.
“After taking the lead we knocked on from the restart and we gave them a try straight back to lose that lead.
“We’ve done that in the past, and we’ve got nobody to blame but ourselves.
“We dominated territory and possession, but we just didn’t translate the pressure we put on them into points.”