It wasn’t to be on Saturday as Bristol Bears threw it away to go down 35-37 to Saracens, but ‘family day’ at Ashton Gate was a tremendous success with fans subjected to a rollercoaster of pulsating, exciting and inevitably, stressful rugby across both the Men’s and the Women’s games.
It was great to see several thousand people in attendance for the Bears Women but despite their loss, there was a really positive vibe around the stadium as the sun shone. The ground started swelling in numbers and the anticipation grew for the later kick off and ultimately it was the sort of match that most fans and pundits were expecting – a high scoring contest that ebbed and flowed but finally, and agonisingly came down to a last-minute penalty from Saracens who nicked the game with the clock in the red.
READ MORE: Bristol Bears player ratings from Saracens defeat – ’10/10 display’
They are absolute past masters at winning games like this and did their very best to slow our momentum in the last quarter when we were pumping their line and looking for the killer blow. But therein lies the problem. If you don’t take your chances at this level, then you are going to get punished by the likes of Saracens. We won at the Rec because we were clinical in their 22 but here, at home, we turned over too many balls and butchered too many chances to get the result that our superb effort and ambition deserved.
But let’s look at the very many positives. First, we now know we have the ‘Bears Way’ embedded into our psyche. In the past we have tried to beat Saracens at their own game but today we set the agenda and looked to disrupt them with an insanely exciting and highly skilled running and offloading game that at times simply took your breath away. Secondly, this was done with a large number of young players with the likes of Joe Jenkins, Jack Bates, James Dun and Joe Owen showing that Academy players are now graduating to the big time. Finally, we were led by the unstoppable and unflappable machine that is Fitz Harding. Is there a better on-field captain in club rugby at the moment? 3 tries, 22 carries, 14 tackles, 4 offloads and smile that would melt any mother-in-law’s heart. ‘Leading by example’ is an easy cliché to reach for but in Fitz we have the dictionary definition.
Up the Bears!
You can listen to Bears Beyond The Gate on all major platforms including Apple, Spotify and Buzzsprout.