What a game, what a result and what a performance! The Bears dusted off last weekend’s disappointment by roaring back in the best conceivable way and making Bristolians beat their chests with pride. It was certainly a match for the ages and Bath played their part too by mounting a second half comeback that was ultimately repelled by a fine rear-guard action. Hearing the Blackbird sung loud and proud capped off a highly satisfactory afternoon.
Despite a decent record at the Rec the Bears arrived as underdogs but showed both the necessary bark and the bite to confound the early season predictions. In his post-match interview Pat Lam outlined how important this fixture is to the wider Bristol community and the team channelled this belief by clinically securing the try bonus point by half time, although you do wonder whether the fact that the Bath players saw the piercing eyes of the new away strip relentlessly bearing down on them again and again meant that it was as much a case of them playing against the jersey than the Bears playing for it!
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There were numerous individual performances that fed into the collective will to win. Harry Randall razzled and dazzled like we know can, AJ MacGinty was as creative in attack as he was solid in defence and Benard Janse Van Rensburg simply overshadowed Ollie Lawrence with another superb outing. However, victories like this are also won in the engine room and it was the pack, in my humble opinion, who should take a large share of the plaudits.
The back row was immense and reminded people that the whilst the likes of Pepper and Reid are great prospects, there is no substitute for experience with Steve Luatua, Santi Grondona and Fitz Harding all over their briefs, and as for Gabriel Oghre, it was like having a second scrum half on the pitch. Beyond that the set piece was rock solid, the management of the breakdown was vastly improved and not one restart was fumbled! The key now is to maintain consistency. There are three hard games to come but if we can keep the momentum up and finish this block there or there abouts, then who knows where will be when these two teams meet again in Cardiff!
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