Nick Cain analysis
They’re up, but can Bristol survive in Premiership?
BRISTOL know from harsh experience that if their front five forwards are not up to scratch next season they can kiss goodbye to any hopes of Premiership survival.
That’s why, as the champagne corks popped at Ashton Gate last weekend when Bristol secured their second Premiership promotion in three years in front of a 13,000 crowd by overwhelming Doncaster, the bubbly should have been accompanied by a sobering message.
Namely, that billionaire Bristol owner Steve Lansdown’s pile of lucre can buy all the Charles Piutaus and Steven Luatuas in the world, but if the front five is forever on skid row then even having All Blacks of their pedigree can be rendered null and void.
Piutau is one of the few All Blacks to have truly punched his weight after transferring to Northern Hemisphere rugby in the pro era. Although he has been hindered at times by injuries some of the marauding full-back/wing’s performances for Wasps and Ulster over the last couple of seasons have been breathtaking.
It is what makes Piutau the key player in Bristol head coach Pat Lam’s ambitious bid to turn the club from serial underperformers to Premiership title contenders over the next few seasons.
Luatua was not a first choice for New Zealand in the same way as Piutau, but the mobile back rower’s 15 caps – despite falling in and out of favour with Steve Hansen – are testament to his counter-attacking quality.
However, they cannot be the inspiration for the sort of rapid, New Zealand-style counter-attacking rugby that Lam hankers after if Bristol’s set-piece is in bits.
It explains why Bristol have finally taken a leaf out of Exeter’s book when it comes to recruitment. When Exeter beat Bristol in the Championship final play-off in 2010, consigning them to an unbroken eight year stint in the second tier, Chiefs coach Rob Baxter was smart enough to have already started the strategy of affordable recruiting from the best of their Championship opponents.
It helped to establish Exeter as a squad with enough depth and forward clout to not just survive in the Premiership, but thrive. Belatedly, Bristol, who have attempted to buy success with a scattergun approach for years, signing mercenaries from all points of the compass, have instructed their recruiting sergeants to take a long hard look at the Championship for solid pros who will hold the line in the Premiership.
For instance, while the move to Ashton Gate of another former All Black, tight-head John Afoa, from Gloucester, has hogged the forward transfer headlines, the real measure of Bristol’s bid to avoid immediate relegation next season will be how well the rest of their front row imports cope.
With veteran props Saione Tonga’uiha and Gaston Cortes moving on, the new Bristol cohort includes tight-heads Jake Armstrong (Jersey) and Lewis Thiede (Ealing), loose-heads Jake Woolmore (Jersey) and Yann Thomas (Rouen), and hookers Shaun Malton (Exeter), Harry Thacker (Leicester) and Tom Lindsay (Bedford).
The likes of Armstrong and Thiede can take encouragement that there have been a stack of front row forwards who have cut their teeth in the Championship and gone on to make a name for themselves in the Premiership, and in the international arena. Leicester’s Dan Cole (Bedford), Exeter’s Harry Williams (Jersey), Tomas Francis (London Scottish) and Luke Cowan-Dickie (Cornish Pirates) are just for starters.
However, the weight on their shoulders – and those of the 34year-old veteran Afoa – to stand up to the set-piece assault they face from established Premiership clubs will go a long way to determining whether Bristol thrive, or struggle.
It is a heavy load, with three of the last four promoted sides going straight back down, and it led to Lam’s predecessor, Andy Robinson, being shown the door. Bristol’s Achilles heel when they were relegated in 2017 was that their scrum and line-out were targeted and exposed – and that the rot set in from there despite other parts of their game passing muster.
Lam’s solution appears to be to go into next season with deeper forward reserves than any other promoted side bar Exeter. Apart from those mentioned already they have signed another Kiwi, Connacht openside Jake Heenan, as well as experienced lock Alistair Muldowny, who has had stints with Connacht, Exeter and Grenoble.
On top of that Bristol have an existing roster that includes Wales loosehead Ryan Bevington, Samoa flanker Jack Lam (the coach’s cousin), three-cap England No.8 Jordan Crane,
right, and they can also call on back rowers Dan Thomas (Wales U20), Nick Fenton-Wells and Nick Haining. Even so a core component in any front five rebuild, the second row, appears to be patchwork despite Muldowny’s arrival. A failsafe line-out and an effective driving maul is crucial for Bristol’s survival, and an engine-room of Samoa’s Chris Vui and ex-Gloucester Kiwi import Joe Latta, alongside homegrown counterparts Sam Jeffries and Joe Joyce, lacks a seasoned Test lock. One or more of them might make the leap in standard in the way Calum Green has at Newcastle, but it is a significant challenge to meet in such a short time. Lam is a coach on the rise having taken Connacht to their first major title after winning the Pro12 final in 2016, and now securing promotion for Bristol in his first season in the job. However, Lam’s learning curve also included a difficult four-year stint with the Auckland Blues which ended in him being sacked after his injuryhit squad won only four of their 16 Super Rugby games.
One of the biggest tasks confronting the former Samoa, Auckland, New Zealand Sevens and Northampton backrow great is bringing together not just a squad from many different backgrounds, but also integrating 18 newcomers.
The Bristol side that Lam has assembled next season is stacked with overseas players, many of them with Auckland, Pacific Island, Kiwi or broader Southern Hemisphere connections.
This includes the three marquee All Blacks, Piutau, Luatua and Afoa, as well as fellow Kiwis Heenan, Latta, Samoan-Kiwis Jack Lam, Vui, and tight-head Jordan Lay, and South Africans Malton and Fenton-Wells.
The back line emphasises the global mix with newly acquired Aussie scrum-half Nic Stirzaker partnering 31-cap Ireland fly-half Ian Madigan. There are a couple of
Australian wings in the prolific Luke Morahan, and Jersey import Tom Pincus, and a Pacific Island midfield contingent of Siale Piutau, Tusi Pisi and Alapati Leuia.
Add the former Ealing wing/full-back duo of Piers O’Connor (England U20) and the South African-born Jake Daniels to the dozen or so English players in the existing Bristol squad – only half of them homegrown – and the multinational picture is complete.
Lam will stand or fall by his ability to weld this disparate group together into a unit that is Bristol, heart and soul.
Local optimists suggest that Lam will have a head start because Bristol have secured promotion a month earlier than most of their predecessors, and that he has plans already in place to start pre-season training on June 1 – barely a week after the elite sides in the league have been battering each other in the Premiership final at Twickenham.
An additional advantage being touted is that the Bristol coach will not be hampered too much by international call-ups. The exception to that rule in Bristol’s case is that Samoa still have to secure 2019 World Cup qualification – and, if they are successful, next season will see the start of their preparations for the tournament.
Having coached Samoa, as well as played for them, Lam knows that territory better than most, and therefore how to get the best from his fellow countrymen.
However, what will matter most to him, and to Bristol fans, next season is the Premiership – and, although Lam has had time to study the landscape, it is still unfamiliar terrain.
Guiding Bristol through the hazards, while at the same time trying to forge a strong squad identity in such a diverse group in one season, is a hell of a task.
From this vantage point it is clear that Lam’s squad has more talent and depth than most promoted outfits. Yet, the only way it will be harnessed to pull clear of the drop is if Bristol’s front five is up to the job. And that is in the balance.