Bristol fightback falls short after first half to forget
BRISTOL staged a remarkable second half rally to score 24 unanswered points and have their West Country rivals hanging on at the finish.
At half-time the home side look set for a thrashing when they trailed 34-7 to a dominant Bath pack, but the introduction of Jordan Williams and Dan Thomas rejuvenated Bristol as they scored three tries in nine minutes.
New Bath captain Matt Garvey said: “Our start was exceptional as we played some brilliant rugby but we switched off a bit afterwards.
“They brought on a lot more players than we did so there was more fatigue for us but credit to them, they came back fighting.”
Bath head coach, Tabai Matson, said: “We made a tactical call today to focus on our maul so we were never going to play out wide. Darren Allinson’s clinical kicking gave us valuable territory.”
Garvey led an impressive pack with Zach Mercer and Josh Bayliss combining well to form a lively back row. After an injury ravaged season, Nick Auterac returned to cause havoc in the Bristol scrum which allowed half-backs Darren Allinson and Josh Lewis to control matters with polished performances.
Lewis kicked an early penalty before Jack Walker finished off a driving maul. A clean break from Rory Jennings created the second for Mercer before Allinson took a quick penalty to dart over.
Tom Varndell, Bristol’s star in the first half, deservedly finished off a good three-quarter movement before tries from Jack Wilson and then Matt Banahan – after young wing Charlie Powell had badly misread an up-and under – gave Bath that healthy halftime advantage.
The third quarter saw a huge turnaround with Bristol scoring three tries. Promising James Newey created the first for Aaron Chapman before Welshmen Williams and Thomas both got on the score sheet.
When Darren Atkins was yellow carded for deliberate offside, Bristol must have scented victory but crucially Ehize Ehizode knocked on with the line at his mercy, so the home side’s only consolation was to score the best try of the game when Luke Morahan finished off a flowing movement with the last play.
Bristol head coach Pat Lam said: “Early on we made too many tactical mistakes as we held back on our line speed.
“Once we got our structures right, we improved greatly and are looking forward to playing Scarlets next week.”