Exciting times for Bears – Lansdown

We have the right facilities, management and players to succeed, says club owner

EVERYTHING is in place at Bristol Bears to be serious title contenders this season, club owner Steve Lansdown believes.

The Bears finished at the top of the Gallagher Premiership table for the first time in 2020/21, but were then knocked out of the play-offs in extra time in the semi-finals against eventual champions Harlequins.

With the start of the new league campaign just two weeks away, when Saracens come to Ashton Gate on Friday, September 17, Lansdown has echoed the aims of his director of rugby Pat Lam by insisting the Bears’ minimum aim in 2021/22 is a place in June’s Twickenham final.

Lansdown, who also owns Bristol City and the Bristol Flyers basketball team, has been bankrolling the rugby club since the 2008/09 season and officially became owner in 2012.

After years of yoyoing between the Championship and Premiership, Lansdown brought former Connacht boss Lam to Ashton Gate in 2017, and under his guidance, the team has progressed every season.

In 2019/20, Bristol ended their 37-year wait for top-flight silverware by winning the Challenge Cup, but Lansdown and Lam want more.

Having completed work on their £11.5 million training centre in 2020 and signed some of the best players in the world – Semi Radradra, Charles Piutau, Kyle Sinckler and Steven Luatua – all the ingredients for success look to be in place.

Lansdown, pictured with Lam, declared: “We are an ambitious club. There is plenty of investment in it, we have got the right facilities, the right management, the right players, and we have now just got to put it all

together and perform. The culture is there, we have just got to build on that.

“There was a slight disappointment at the end of last season (losing 36-43 to Harlequins at Ashton Gate in the semi-final), but we have a lot to go forward with.

“It is exciting times and it is just great to be involved with it all.

“We are on target in terms of what we set out to achieve, but we were ahead of target and now we have allowed ourselves to go back onto target – so that is the disappointment we had. Maybe we shouldn’t be too upset about it.”

However, there is little room for error this season with Saracens back in the Premiership after a year in the GKIPA Championship as punishment for breaching the league’s salary cap rules; Exeter Chiefs looking to bounce back from another final defeat; and Sale Sharks rapidly improving, not to mention the rest of an everimproving chasing pack.

Lansdown, above, added: “Our target this season has always been to be in the final this year and to look to win the Premiership and that is where we want to be.

“We want to do well in the Champions Cup as well.”

Bristol have been drawn against Stade Francais and Scarlets in the pool stage of the 2021/22 Heineken Champions Cup. The club were knocked out at the last-16 stage last season away in France against Bordeaux-Begles.

Lansdown said: “We are on a journey and we are well on our path to success, and even more success.”

The club have certainly captured the imagination of the Bristol public with more than 10,000 season tickets now sold for the upcoming campaign, making the Bears one of the best-supported clubs in the country to rival the likes of Leicester Tigers.

■ National League rugby returns this weekend for the first time since the start of the pandemic 18 months ago. Taunton begin their National League One campaign at Leeds Tykes, while Cinderford pay a visit to Blackheath. In National Two South, Clifton host Barnstaple, while Dings go to Westcliff.