Luatua leads the fight as Bristol survive double yellow

BRISTOL overcame the loss of two players to the sin-bin to record a deserved victory over their West Country rivals.

The home side saw Dan Thomas (deliberate offside) and Jack Bates (taking out an opponent in the air) yellow-carded but conceded only one try in their absence.

Bristol boss Pat Lam said: “Picking up yellow cards is a concern but it gave us experience in dealing with them and we managed it really well. The boys showed heart and character to keep them out.”

At the centre of their effort were Harry Thacker and Stephen Luatua, who ensured that Bristol were the more abrasive up front winning the set piece and the battle at the breakdown.

Luatua also popped up in the loose to make key contributions, which was in stark contrast to Nathan Hughes as the marquee signing from Wasps had a debut to forget by making elementary handling errors and displaying none of his trademark bursts.

Lam said: “Luatua was outstanding, he is in real good nick. Nathan brought a lot of energy, he was trying too hard.

“We were in complete control in the first 20 minutes but we made fundamental errors to let them into the game.”

Bristol did dominate early on and were rewarded with a try from Thacker, who finished off a driving line-out. Callum Sheedy converted and added a penalty before Gloucester responded with their first period of pressure with Matt Banahan being forced into the corner flag by desperate tackles from Andy Uren and Sheedy.

Sheedy then kicked a second penalty before Thomas was binned with the visitors capitalising when a superb 45m run from Tom Marshall created a try for Joe Simpson.

Thomas returned to see his side increase the lead with a try from Charlie Powell, who completed a flowing move with a 35m run in.

Gloucester’s problems continued when South African international Ruan Dreyer was stretchered off with a suspected ruptured achilles in what was his first start after an injury ravaged first year with the club.

Aided by Bates’ yellow card, Gloucester rallied to score two tries in the final quarter. Banahan and Geraint Grobler both crossed the line to make the final score closer than it should have been.

Gloucester head coach Johan Ackermann said: “We made a lot of errors, our timing was off and our discipline wasn’t good.

“It was a funny game as we never felt like we were controlling it but we were never out of it.”