Bristol Bears travelled to Cape Town over the weekend, as they faced the DHL Stormers in the opening round of the Champions Cup where they were defeated 49-12.
The Bears’ traveled with their youngest-ever squad as they hoped to continue on the strong start they had in the Gallagher PREM season with hope it would carry over into their games in Europe.
The Stromers had a head start, as they opened up the scoring in the seventh minute through Seabelo Senatla and again in the 15th minute with a try from Leolin Zas. That was before the Bears’ got on the scoresheet, through a try from Joe Owen, with the Stormers coming back in the 29th minute with a try from Jonathan Roche.
With the last 10 minutes of the first half seeing no try’s the Stormers went into half time with a 21-7 lead.
It was the Bears’ who started the second half the better, Sol Moody got the travelling side back into the game, but Stormers quickly hit back with Roche scoring his second in the 53rd minute. The home team kept the try’s coming in the last 10 minutes with Warrick Gelant adding his name to the score board in the 71st minute.
This was followed two minutes later as Andre-Hugo Venter got across the line. The final try came from the man who opened up the scoring for the day, Senatla in the 77th minute.
Throughout the game the Bears’ had opportunities to add to the scoreline, as the home team recieved a 20 minute red card, shown to JJ Kotze in the 33rd minute, as well as Leolin Zas getting a yellow card in the 48th minute. This saw the home team down to 13 men for five minutes but the Bears couldn’t make the most of the time.
After the game Bears’ player Kieran Marmion faced the press to express his feelings on the game, “I’m proud of the lads. I thought we applied a lot of pressure throughout the game, but it got away from us as the end of the game.”
Adding on “we had a lot of young lads in our team who don’t have as much experience and I thought they fought very well, especially in the first 60 minutes. So I’m very proud of them.”
The Bears’ travelled to South Africa with a few key players missing due to injury as the previous weeks game saw Louis Rees-Zammit suffer an injury to the leg which he shared on social media last Tuesday. As well as Prop Ellis Genge out due to a sprained wrist that he got back at the beginning of the season.
Bristol Bears will face Exeter Chiefs this weekend in Derby weekend of the Prem where they hope to return to their winning ways.
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