Semi’s superb try gives Bears narrow first-leg advantage
And Nathan Russell report on Bristol’s Champions Cup first leg win against Sale
BRISTOL boss Pat Lam hailed the impact of Semi Radradra, who pulled a piece of magic out the bag when it was needed most to cross for a try to earn a 10-9 comeback victory over Sale Sharks in their Heineken Champions Cup last-16 first-leg tie.
Radradra’s form has been shaky this season since returning in December from knee surgery, but on Saturday his superb 40-metre solo try in the closing stages of an otherwise error-strewn game at the AJ Bell Stadium, was by far his biggest moment of the 2021-22 campaign.
Following a scrum near halfway, Radradra burst through midfield from a lovely short pass from Piers O’Conor and stepped his way past last defender Simon Hammersley to put his side ahead late on from a move perfected on the training paddock at the club’s £11.5 million
High Performance Centre during the week.
Bristol director of rugby Lam said: “We changed that move on Thursday. We thought ‘let’s just adjust this and it’ll be a perfect line for Semi to run on to,’ and they ran it perfectly.
“He would be the first to admit he hasn’t been firing on all cylinders, but some of the stuff he does in games creates so many opportunities. It was good to see him open up and remind people what he does have.”
Radradra started on the bench along with Bristol’s other marquee man Charles Piutau, with Lam explaining the squad had been hit with illness early in the week and he wanted to start with the side that had trained together.
Lam labelled the Bears’ first win at Sale under his tenure as a “morale-booster” after a difficult season in the league. He said: “It’s a morale-booster in the sense that we have been up here five times during my time here and haven’t won.
“It’s a tough place to come. You know you’re in for a physical battle and you have to meet that head on. That’s what I’m most pleased about for the boys.
“We were gutted after that Northampton game (losing 39-22). The boys felt ‘that’s not us,’ worked hard on it this week and it was a big effort to keep Sale out all game.”
Until Radradra scored it was a game lacking in quality and Lam admitted there was plenty to improve on.
Explaining the kick-centric style of play the Bears employed, Lam said: “Sale always tend to feed off our errors so we tried to be more conservative. While the calls we made were good, some of our execution was off due to pass quality, kick quality, but saying that the fight from the boys was outstanding. It is only half-time in this tie, we are one point ahead and now we head home.”
Sale scored all their points through the boot of fly-half Rob du Preez from a trio of penalty kicks, while Bristol stand-off Callum Sheedy also added five points with a penalty and conversion.
The two sides meet again at Ashton Gate on Friday night.
Meanwhile, Sale coach Alex Sanderson was frustrated with his side as they fell to a home defeat.
He said: “There is a great deal of frustration. Bristol were brilliant tactically, they bored us off, but it wasn’t a brilliant spectacle of freeflowing championship rugby. It was a tactic that worked and we have got to be better.
“The teams that do really well in
this competition do the simple things really well, we need to do more of the simple things better.”
But Sanderson was quick to look forward to the return leg as his team hope to overturn the singlepoint deficit.
He added: “That is the beauty of a double header, we get to exorcise any frustration next week so roll on Friday. I wish we could play it again tomorrow.
“It wasn’t a fair representation of how we train, how we play or what we want to showcase in terms of the talent we have. We have got six days to put it right.”
The first hour was a gruelling affair with territory seeming to be the only important statistic aside from the scoreline.
Rob du Preez’s boot put the hosts six points up following a pair of infringements at the breakdown from the Bristol pack in their own 22. Sheedy got his side on the board after Sale captain Jono Ross was caught going in at the side to reduce the gap to three points.
As the heavens began to open, the contest began to resemble a tennis game, with the scrum-halves exchanging box-kicks for what felt like the remaining minutes of the opening half.
Whenever either side did manage to build up more than a phase, some loose play around the breakdown or poor handling led to another change of possession, rendering momentum impossible to come by.
Bristol’s box-office bench began to unload in the opening minutes of the second half, with Charles Piutau in particular painting a far more threatening picture for the Sale defence.
As the game advanced, Sale looked more menacing with the ball in hand, but Bristol matched them as they flexed their defensive organisation and ability to turnover the ball in the breakdown.
The deadlock was broken when Radradra ran a picture-perfect line off O’Conor that saw him break free through the centre and then step off his right foot to beat Sale’s final defender Simon Hammersley, with the Fijian touching down between the posts to give Bristol the lead.
Radradra then got caught going in at the side of the ruck to gift a penalty to Sale, with Rob du Preez slotting it over from 35 metres out to reduce the gap to just a point.
Despite a valiant final effort from the Sharks, Bristol turned the ball over at the ruck to end the game, and give them the advantage heading into the second leg.
Sale: Luke James; Jack Metcalf (Simon Hammersley, 65), Sam James, Manu Tuilagi (Rohan Janse van Rensburg, 49), Aaron Reed; Robert du Preez, Faf de Klerk (Raphael Quirke, 49) (Tommy Taylor, 72); Bevan Rodd (Simon McIntyre, 63), Akker van der Merwe (Ewan Ashman, 63), Nick Schonert (Coenie Oosthuizen, 31), Jacobus Wiese, Lood de Jager, Jean-Luc du Preez, Jono Ross, Dan du Preez.
Bristol: Luke Morahan; Jack Bates (Charles Piutau, 41), Piers O’Conor, Sam Bedlow (Semi Radradra, 58), Alapati Leiua; Callum Sheedy, Harry Randall (Andy Uren, 78); Jake Woolmore (Yann Thomas, 63), Bryan Byrne (Harry Thacker, 48), Kyle Sinckler (John Afoa, 48), Dave Attwood (Steven Luatua, 48), Joe Joyce, Chris Vui, Sam Jeffries, Nathan Hughes (Fitz Harding, 58).