Bristol Bears put an end to their five-week losing streak with an emphatic 51-26 West Country victory over Gloucester.
Director of rugby Pat Lam was delighted for for the Bears: “I’m very pleased. To put 50 on Gloucester is never an easy feat, we started really well.
“We lost the toss but the mindset to ‘go at them’ was key for us, and with that came the responsibility of what we have spoken about all week, about controlling the ball.
Embed from Getty Images“Someone said to me after the game ‘you must be relieved’ and I said, no I feel exactly the same as all the other games, the boys just got what they deserved. With the work that they’ve put in each week, day in and day out has made me really proud of them, and finally they got on the positive side of the result.”
Bears’ performance was a huge improvement to their recent form. However, they still allowed Gloucester to score enough tries to gain a losing bonus point. Lam said:
“One of the things we will look at is that we were way ahead but let them back in. You have to flip it, if we were in that stage what would we want? We’d want the ball, so then we need to look at, how did they get the ball? what decisions did we make in defence? or when we had the ball by giving it back too easily.
“We knew they got on a good ride of momentum, they’re a good side, and they’ve got some quality players, but we needed to get the ball and control it. We said we needed to get the ball, slow it down, and bring the pressure, and when we did, we turned the tide in the last 10 minutes.”
Despite a convincing performance, fly-half Callum Sheedy came off after 50 minutes. Lam said: “Callum took a knock to his quad and had a dead leg, so with the cold weather conditions I decided to bring him off and give Williams a chance. When you’re that far ahead, you shouldn’t lose, people might say keep the team on, get more points but some of those boys on the bench need some games.”
Embed from Getty ImagesSaturday’s contest was very forward-dominant with set pieces playing a massive part in the majority of the tries. Lam said: “When you look at Harry Thacker, he’s not the biggest hooker, but he has super strength, he’s got super strength that some of our players don’t have.
“Joe Batley and James Dun have been here since I arrived, but they’re playing the best rugby they ever have. They’ve always had the talent, but maybe not the confidence and maybe not the mindset to really understand their talent. They’ve been off to Worcester and Jersey, but have come back and are now playing the best rugby I’ve seen them play in their careers.”
Bristol Bears now turn their attention away from the Premiership and to the European Champions cup as on Saturday they face Lyon at home.
