Lam hails ‘big win’ as Bears replace Chiefs at the top
EXETER CHIEFS VS BRISTOL BEARS, GALLAGHER PREMIERSHIP reports on Bristol’s victory against Exeter at Sandy Park
BRISTOL Bears laid down a marker of their title credentials with a 20-7 away win against defending champions Exeter Chiefs, to leapfrog the Devon side and go top of the Gallagher Premiership after round six.
While not a huge margin of victory, the scoreline represented Exeter’s biggest home defeat for four years.
Bristol director of rugby Pat Lam warned pre-match the intensity of the rugby in the top-of-the-table clash at Sandy Park would be close to Test standard and he was not wrong as the two best sides in the Gallagher Premiership went at each other hammer and tong.
After an energetic and loud warm-up, the Bears flew out the blocks and landed the first blow with a try in the 15th minute from a well worked five-metre line-out move. Bryan Byrne threw to the middle pod and the ball was popped down to Nathan Hughes at the front of the line to cleverly shift the point of the drive. The Bears piled in to force their way over the line, with the smallest man on the pitch, Harry Randall, touching down.
On the half-hour mark, referee Karl Dickson lost patience with props Harry Williams, of Exeter, and Bristol’s Jake Woolmore, after a horrendous series of penalties at the scrum, and sent both men to the sin-bin.
With extra space on the field, Exeter pounced as Bristol froze after Siva Naulago deliberately knocked the ball on. Referee Dickson played advantage and Chiefs took it with Olly Woodburn skipping his way out of a couple of tackles before the ball was spread perfectly through the hands. Sam Simmonds was lingering on the
wing and crashed infield to get within a couple of metres of the line and Jonny Hill, at the point of a wedge of Chiefs players, finished the job.
After going in at 7-7 at the break, Exeter were kept scoreless in the second half while Bristol scored 13 points with Sheedy landing a pair of penalties and the conversion of Semi Radradra’s 68th-minute try.
The Fijian star powered over the line as Bristol built sustained pressure.
With no fans at Sandy Park because of the Covid-19 pandemic, there is no doubt the Chiefs heard the loud centre-field rendition of Bristol’s winning song ‘Blackbird’ from the changing rooms.
“It’s a big win for the club,” said Lam. “Coming here, we were going to get a taste of them being at their best, so we prepared accordingly.
“We talked about what it takes at Test match level, the intensity and physicality. You can’t just rock up with those things, you have got to prepare the whole week. It was a massive effort by everybody.
“There is a long way to go, but it’s more the way we are playing rugby at the moment.
“People admire all the fancy
stuff, but statistically, we have the best maul, for instance. No one has scored a maul try against us.
“They came hard, but we hit them hard, and that’s what we planned to do.”
No one impressed more than 23-year-old Randall, who is uncapped at international level, but is eligible for England and Wales. His latest virtuoso display was witnessed by England head coach Eddie Jones.
Lam added: “He has got the skillset to play at the next level if he keeps working.
“I can’t control Eddie’s decisions, but all I know is he has gone from strength to strength.
“Pound for pound he is the toughest rugby player around. He is only 70kg, but it is not the size, it is
And on Exeter’s loss to their West Country rivals, Baxter added: “Well done to Bristol. I thought they came here and executed what they wanted to do very well.
“You could tell by our performance last week that we had hit a bit of a flat spot. We had an expectation we would be better this week after a bit of a slap in the face, and I think we were.
“We got ourselves back in the game after a slow start, and then didn’t capitalise on some opportunities we got.
“To be fair to Bristol they were just that bit more composed and made things count in our 22 a little more than we did.
“The reality is that we’ve probably got to look at ourselves and have a little bit of a reset moment.”
Exeter Chiefs: Jack Walsh; Olly Woodburn, Henry Slade, Ollie Devoto, Ian Whitten; Joe Simmonds (capt), Sam Hidalgo-Clyne; Alec Hepburn, Luke Cowan-Dickie, Harry Williams, Will Witty, Jonny Hill, Sam Skinner, Don Armand, Sam Simmonds. Replacements: Jack Yeandle (for CowanDickie, 68), Tomas Francis (for Williams, 53), Jonny Gray (for Witty, 48), Sam Maunder (for Hidalgo-Clyne, 72), James Short (for Simmonds, 75).
Not used: James Kenny, Tom Price, Corey