Bristol boy Joe’s done with clapping Exeter
LIONHEART lock Joe Joyce believes Bristol Bears’ multi-millionpound training ground investment has left the squad with nowhere to hide in their quest for domestic and European domination.
Joyce, dubbed the ‘King of the Mead’ on account of his Bristolian roots in Southmead, has benefitted from the new training facilities at Abbots Leigh to the extent that he is now one of the first names on Pat Lam’s team sheet, often outperforming some of world’s finest second rows.
With last week’s convincing (20-7) win at Exeter establishing clear water for Bristol at the top of the Premiership and a last 16 Champions Cup spot likely, Joyce believes his side can usurp last season’s doublewinners as the West’s latest wannabes continue their rise.
Joyce, 26, told The Rugby Paper: “There’s a bit of mutual respect going on with Exeter and you can see what they’ve done in the last ten years since beating us in that 2010 Championship final. As a West Country rugby man, you can be quite proud of what they’ve done.
“In this part of the world to have achieved what they’ve done is brilliant, but we want to take over now.
“We’ve clapped them for a while but we want to fly that flag now and since we lost to Wasps at the start of the season, we’ve won every league game and haven’t looked back.
“Pat Lam’s such an inspirational guy and this is my fourth season under him and every year he just keeps setting the bar higher. In our first year when we got promoted people were talking about simply surviving, but he flushed that talk away and said he wanted more.
“Last year he wanted top four and a trophy, which we did; this year he wants semi-finals and finals and we’ve put ourselves out there as targets, but we’ve done the job so far. As a local boy, it means so much to be doing that and the new training ground is helping massively.”
Joyce explained how expectations have been raised, adding: “Our new training facilities put us under more pressure and add greater responsibility to do well. You walk in and it’s probably the best rugby facility ever seen, but you can’t have a facility like that and not do the business.
“That training ground is built to deliver silverware so to get our first win in the Challenge Cup in October was massive and now we want to become Premiership and Champions Cup winners because we’ve got the structure, facilities and players to go out there and beat anyone.
“The only reason we won’t achieve those things is because we’re not working hard enough – but we are and, personally, the little things at the new training centre are helping.
“We’ve got a new chef down there so our nutrition’s gone up a level and the weather doesn’t impact on our training like it used to.
“At our old training ground at Clifton, you could go three or four weeks without getting on the field but here it’s not a problem as we’ve got two state-of-the-art grass pitches and if they’re frozen, we can do full training in the new indoor barn.”
Having been a regular Premiership starter over the last two seasons, does Joyce feel he is now reaching the stage where he could conceivably warrant an England call-up?
“I try not to think about that because every week is just a crazy challenge in this league,” he says. “Every game you’re playing against international locks – it was Jonny Hill and Jonny Gray last week, next time it could be Charlie Ewels and Elliott Stooke and then a pair of big South Africans against Sale.
“It’s constant and you’ve got to be on it every week, but I’m competing with them and I’m just trying to focus on Bristol – anything after that would be a massive bonus.”
One man Joyce is convinced will be heading for international honours is dual-qualified scrum-half Harry Randall, who could slip through England’s net if Wales choose to pounce.
Joyce adds: “He’s given the international selectors no choice but to pick him, it’s just a question of who? He’s an amazing player. He’s probably the toughest player pound for pound I’ve played with and he’s got an incredible skillset as well.
“For someone so small he brings the biggest blokes down and the tempo he brings to a game is always right up there. England have a decision to make and they need to do it fast.”