The Orinoco may flow thousands of miles away in South America but Sale away on a Friday night seems just as far when it comes to rugby philosophies.
The defeat was as much a loss of rugby soul as it was a scoreboard statistic. They may be sharks but Sale are more like vultures when it comes to the way that they feast on the roadkill of opportunity they create and with the infernal vuvuzela-type horn screeching ten to the dozen at the AJ Bell on Friday, there were even times when it sounded more like a pack of laughing hyenas snapping at the heels of the Bears.
Where the return of the fans to Ashton Gate was a riotous party of joy and energy, this gathering in Manchester felt, to Bristol fans at least, more like one of those illegal lockdown gatherings where the participants showed scant regard for social mores, left the place littered with detritus and rendered most neutral observers shaking their heads in disbelief.
Calling the way Sale go about their business as ‘anti-rugby’ may be a bit harsh on hardworking professionals, both in front of and behind the scenes, but every fan follows their team with rose tinted spectacles and to support Sale does mean to some extent wearing a pair of oversized comedy gigs loved only by Timmy Mallet, pantomime costume suppliers and stag do participants.
That said, you can’t knock the effort that the Sale players put in over the full 80 to disrupt the Bears’ game plan and win the game, but there were three inter-related reasons why they emerged victorious: first, their tenacious defence; secondly, the impact of their bench and finally, the way in which they took full advantage of Semi Radrada’s yellow card. Despite Ioan Lloyd’s superb late try the writing was on the wall for Bristol with at least ten minutes to go and it didn’t make good reading.
The frustrating thing for the Bears was that a first half of territorial and possession dominance yielded the square root of nothing and in a season where points have been scattered around with impunity, it seemed inexplicable that the scoreboard operator was rendered unemployed for such a long time. It was both a product of ferocious dominant tackles from the Sharks, liberal refereeing of the long forgotten offside line and an inability of the Bears to adapt.
Some of the collisions in the first half were tectonic in their intensity and whilst every Shark made their mark, in Jean-Luc du Preez they had a Mr Rotivator as much as a Mr Motivator in the way that he ploughed a constant and deep furrow through Bristol’s hopes of winning. Despite looking like Freddie Mercury his man of the match performance was the steel that went a long way in yielding the Sharks a crop of tries in the final quarter when they found acres of space to exploit after Semi had been sent out to pasture for his tackle ill discipline.
This was test match intensity stuff and despite the disappointment in losing, Bristol fans must still be pinching themselves that they are worthy participants in such a contest given where the club has come from.
On that note, there were many good Bears’ performances, particularly in the pack, which yet again looked as solid as any other currently plying its trade in the northern hemisphere, but whilst the backs tried every running and passing trick in the book to get behind Sale, the lack of scoreboard pressure to match the first half stats domination was ultimately their downfall. If Bristol had gone into half time with at least a ten point lead or so you feel that they would have had enough to see the game through.
You either win or you learn but when it comes to Sale this season, it does feel like we have definitely lost. It was, to some extent, a carbon copy of the performance at Ashton Gate in that Bristol dominated possession in the first half and butchered or rejected all their scoring opportunities whilst Sale defended mercilessly, rushed our back line and then scored at the death.
But as soon as it became clear that the officials were not going to pay any attention to the offside line then there needed to be a change of plan.
Why not turn the stampeding defenders on their feet with a George Ford-esque spiral bomb?
Why not dink a little grubber through for Piers O’Conor to chase rather than leave him to the mercy of the marauding defenders?
And bizarrely, why not take the points for the kickable penalties in the first half like they did against Gloucester?
It’s feels churlish to be critical in this way after such an amazing season to date, and one which may well finish in a similar vein, but to me this was our first real failure of decision making both on and off the pitch.
We are at the top table where hard questions require quick and decisive answers. Without wanting to sound defeatist it seems to me that that a combination of worthy ambition, sublime skill and let’s face it, a bit of luck has got us to the lofty league position and it has been an exhilarating roller coaster ride for all of us, but if we have pretensions to win the play offs then pragmatism has to now take over from ideology.
And what better fixture to test this out than another away trip to the Tigers, who also appear to be modeling their rebirth on forward domination, rush defence and territorial kicking. To me the game on Saturday isn’t so much about player selection but more about game plan. Show that we have learned from the chastening double defeat by Sale and lifting the cup at Twickenham on the 26th June will still be a realistic goal.
If you want to hear more insight into this game, a preview of the Tigers match with BBC Leicester commentator Chris Egerton and the return of the ticketing ‘gets my goat’ then click here for the latest episode of Bears Beyond The Gate, the Bristol rugby podcast made by fans for fans!
Filthy Rig 