Bears will be back to form soon, insists Joyce
JOE Joyce insists Bristol Bears will “come good” this season despite starting the Gallagher Premiership with four defeats from five matches and just one victory.
Pat Lam’s men have earned only four points this term, leaving them 12th in the standings, with winless Bath the solitary team below them.
Joyce, however, has promised worried fans that the players will turn the results around after defeat at Newcastle on Saturday left them well off the pace in the race for the end-of-season play-offs.
The towering lock has called for calmness and togetherness as the Bears look to turn things around.
Bristol now have a bye weekend coming up, giving them time to regroup, and Joyce, who has played 129 games for the club having come through the academy, insists he has seen much darker days than these following years toiling in the secondtier Championship.
However, last season’s top-of-thetable finish in the Premiership, and the expectation of success director of rugby Pat Lam has given fans, means Bristol’s poor start to the season has come as a shock.
Joyce said: “The last couple of results aren’t acceptable, but we are barring up. As long as we stick together, don’t make excuses and don’t point fingers, it will come good.
“I know it is a bit of a cliche, but results like this, when we turn it around, at the end of the season it will make it more special.
“We have got a bye week now, so it is important we do what we need to do in that week off.
“It won’t be too long until we are back firing again.”
The Bears will return to action away at London Irish before facing Worcester, two of the perceived weaker sides in the Premiership, offering the side an opportunity to rebuild, but also bringing a type of pressure of its own as Lam’s side need to start accumulating points before they face sterner tests.
Fresh injuries to Jake Woolmore, Chris Vui, Piers O’Conor, Sam Bedlow and Henry Purdy to add to Bryan Byrne, Steven Luatua, Siva Naulago and Luke Morahan saw Lam hand first starts of the season to Jack Bates, Antoine Frisch, Toby Fricker and Sam Jeffries.
Jeffries has been tuning up for his first Premieship start in nearly four years with games for Hatrpury in the Championship. His return from a knee injury was the one true bright spot of Saturday afternoon.
Joyce continued: “It was good to see some fresh lads come in. A lot of boys who haven’t played, Sam Jeffries who has been out for a long time, he had a bad injury, to see him back out performing like that for 80 minutes was nice to see.
“There were some young lads playing, but at the end of the day you want the result. All these things are nice, but I promise you there will be hard work to try to fix things.
“It is a results business but there is a long way to go yet. Everyone loses games.
“This is another game we are lost but this is not Arsenal (football club) in 03/04, we were not going to go the season unbeaten. We will come back, I promise you.
“We have got too many people at this club who care.”