Lam demands ‘best ever’ display
PAT Lam has targeted Bristol’s “best performance ever” as the Gallagher Premiership play-off race builds towards a thrilling finish this weekend.
A record 40-3 league win for the Bears against Leicester Tigers on Wednesday night leaves them chasing one of three remaining play-off places with Wasps, Bath and Sale Sharks.
A repeat performance on Sunday – the regular season’s final day – against London Irish should set Bristol up for a top-four spot, although they will also require Wasps to come unstuck against Exeter or Bath likewise at Saracens.
“Our aim is to have our best performance ever on Sunday at London Irish, and come 5pm we will know if that is good enough or not,” Bristol rugby director Lam, pictured, said. “Irish are a tough team. They drew here (in December), and they had a good win at Exeter (on Wednesday). Our focus is ourselves. The five points were what we were after Leicester), so job done.
“We are happy with some aspects of the performance, but certainly not satisfied, as we made some silly mistakes because of turnovers. We built the game nicely, but we lost nine balls in contact and took our foot off the pedal. We didn’t kick on as much as we wanted to after getting the fourth try.”
Forwards Nathan Hughes, Bryan Byrne and Dan Thomas all scored tries for the Bears, while Ioan Lloyd, Harry Thacker and a penalty try also added to their total against the Tigers.
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England’s Manu Tuilagi has been ruled out for six months with a torn Achilles tendon, says Sale director of rugby Steve Diamond.
The centre, 29, was hurt just 12 minutes into Sale’s Gallagher Premiership encounter against Northampton on Tuesday.
He will therefore miss England’s remaining 2020 Six Nations game with Italy and possibly the entire 2021 tournament.
Tuilagi will also be unavailable for the Autumn Nations Cup, which starts this November.
The former Leicester back, who moved to AJ Bell Stadium during the summer, will have surgery on the injury next week.
“Manu will be a loss to England and Sale,” said Diamond. “He’ll be out for six months. It’s brutal what we’re playing at the minute. Dan Biggar fell on him, so it was an accident. I think it might have been a jinx, me saying before the game that we’ve got nine out of nine games out of him and boom.”