Rugby Defeat will teach young Bears valuable lessons, says Lam
PAT Lam said Saturday’s 22-35 defeat at home to La Rochelle is about building for the future, writes John Evely.
While the loss at Ashton Gate may hurt Bristol Bears’ chances of progressing out of Pool 4 in the European Champions Cup, where they now sit third in the table, it gives young players like Charlie Powell, still just 19, the chance to one day become world beaters, and club greats said Lam.
Talking after the match Lam, pictured, explained: “You can see why these guys are third in the Top 14, they are a quality side and we knew that before hand. We were deter- mined to play a lot of the English qualified players and young players, like Mat Protheroe and Charlie Powell. A lot of these guys played Shield rugby on Sunday and they came in today. Mat was outstanding and I thought it was a good quality game for him to come back in here at Ashton Gate.
“And Charlie Powell, he was at school, BGS, not so long ago, and him coming through is exactly our vision. We have signed him long term and it was great for his development. All our big name players have got to that level because they have been given the chance and have got that experience and that is what we need to give to our other group of players. So it was really good learning for them and we put this competition in the context of what we are trying to achieve here.
“There are still expectations to win the game but the priority was to get as many English players in our squad, the younger guys and give them a game and that will be the same next week.
“I thought we started very well, we scored a very good forwards try, but I thought the try by Jake Heenan was outstanding rugby with the simple things done very well. It was straight off the training pitch.
“Then we let them in for a try against the run of play and then we had two or three chances to really push on and we didn’t take them unfortunately, through execution and decision making then they scored against the run of play. After that we embarrassed ourselves with two or three tries which were fairly soft but credit to the boys they fought back into it.”
Bristol scored through Harry Thacker, Heenan, Tom Pincus and Powell, with the young winger scoring the bonus point try which provides the Bears with a slim chance of making the quarterfinals. La Rochelle, who were playing Champions Cup rugby last season scored through Romain Sazy, Gregory Alldritt, Jules Favre, Vincent Rattez and Jeremy Sinzelle. Maxine Lafage scored all five conversions for 10 points with the boot.