Bears building momentum, despite patchy performance
Reports on Bristol’s Premiership Cup victory against Exeter at Sandy Park
BRISTOL Bears failed to hit the heights expected of them on Saturday, as a strong side won 33-27 away at a depleted Exeter Chiefs in the Premiership Rugby Cup, but vitally they continued the club’s upward momentum.
Having named a strong side to travel to Sandy Park, the Bears were looking to build on back-to-back bonus-point wins in the Gallagher Premiership.
The Bears’ performance was patchy at best as the backlined struggled to spark, but five tries and a win in Devon, along with debuts for six new players, left assistant coach Conor McPhillips reflectining on the positives.
Speaking after the match, he said: “We talked about momentum coming into this game, it is a buzz word at the moment.
“We came into the game off the back of two Premiership wins and it is important we maintain that momentum and the boys are in a good place going into next week.”
Bristol travel to Worcester Warriors next weekend in the second round of this cup competition, which has largely been used as a development tool in recent years, before hosting Northampton Saints at Ashton Gate in the league at the end of the month.
With the Bears still only 11th in the Premiership table, that game is a huge focus for the club.
Bristol were caught cold in the opening moments at Sandy Park with prop James Kenny powering over from close range after just four minutes, before fly-half Jack Walsh finished a 70-metre counter-attack after Sean O’Brien picked off a pass from Ioan Lloyd to put the hosts 14-0 up.
Shortly after, Wales international Ioan Lloyd, making his first start of the season at fly-half, was withdrawn, looking off his game and struggling physically. Sam Bedlow, making his return from injury, came off the bench to play at No 10.
McPhillips explained: “Ioan was a bit niggly in his back. He was bit compromised in how he was running and kicking. It was early in the game and we don’t need these niggles when we have got fresh legs on the bench so we brought him off.
Discussing the poor start to the game, McPhillips said: “We are a little bit frustrated with the first half, we knew Exeter would come out fast and physical and they did that. We probably didn’t match it the way we wanted to.
“The frustration for us was we had too many turnovers in the first half, we tried to play and offload the ball but you have got to earn the offload first.
“If you keep turning the ball over that is going to feed their momentum.”
However, the Bears went back to basics and scored two tries in the closing moments of the first half the first a penalty try after their maul driving maul was brought down illegally, with Chiefs prop Kenny sin-binned.
Then, moments later, Bedlow crashed over the line after taking a brilliant offload from Dan Thomas.
The Bears went in level at 14-14 at the interval but the start of the second half did not go to plan, either.
Thomas was yellow-carded for an offence at the ruck and Josh Hodge punished Bristol further by knocking over the penalty.
Then, for the second time in the march, the Bears had a pass picked off by Chiefs and Walsh, breaking the line with a lovely hop step after turning over the ball, showed outstanding pace to race in from 70m out.
But another purple patch around the hour-mark got Bristol back on track with Will Capon touching down at the bottom of a 5m catch -and-drive maul before the visitors scored their best try of the day. The Bears cut Exeter apart with their offloading game to put Thomas over in the corner, with Luke Morahan and Sam Jeffries making prominent carries in the build-up to the try to get the away side on the front foot.
Macenzzie Duncan, making his debut off the bench, scored the Bears’ fifth a final try of the match, showing good strength to burst off the side of a maul and power over from close range.
In the closing moments, Hodge knocked over a penalty to give his side a losing bonus point but the hard-fought and unflashy victory was Bristol’s.
McPhillips said: “Our backs didn’t click like we would have liked today but our forwards bailed us out today. I am sure it will be the other way around another day.
“We had six debtants and I am really proud of them all.”
The Bears’ debutats were England Under-20s wing Deago Bailey, scrum-half Theo Strang, senior academy back-rower Duncan and tighthead Ashley Challenger, while Jono-Benz Salomon and Oscar Lennon linked up with Bristol from Hartpury College.
Exeter Chiefs: Josh Hodge; Arthur Relton, Sean O’Brien, Ian Whitten (Tom Wyatt, 77), Dan John; Jack Walsh, Sam Maunder (Tom Cairns, 62); James Kenny (Danny Southworth, 60), Oli Burrows (Jordan Poole, 52), Sam Nixon (Patrick Shickerling, 62), Dafydd Jenkins, Ryan McCauley (Cory Teague, 62), Lewis Pearson (Southworth, 42-48), Aaron Hinckley (Archie Hosking, 64), Rus Tuima.
Bristol Bears: Luke Morahan (Charlie Powell, 64); Deago Bailey (Oscar Lennon, 53), Jack Bates, Antoine Frisch, Toby Fricker; Ioan Lloyd (Sam Bedlow, 27), Theo Strang; Jake Woolmore (Ashley Challenger, 66), Harry Thacker (Will Capon, 56), Jake Armstrong (Jono-Benz Salomon, 59), Dave Attwood (Ed Holmes, 56), John Hawkins, Sam Jeffries, Dan Thomas (Macenzzie Duncan, 64), Nathan Hughes.