After reaching relative rugby heights in the last two seasons, it feels like this time round we are still struggling to get out of the foothills. We know in which direction we want to go but don’t quite have the advanced map reading skills required to get us there. As a result, the defeat against Northampton Saints on black Friday was as frustrating as it was disappointing, but one that was representative of our season so far.

When post-match Pat singles out the defence as one of the only positives in a game where you have shipped a try bonus point to the visitors and succumbed to a thirteen-point defeat after having been at parity just after half time, then you do start to wonder whether ‘another bad day at the office’ is really an acceptable enough excuse.

I mean, a bad day at the office is somewhat vague and in a real workplace can encapsulate a whole sliding scale of incompetencies from simply staring at a to-do list all day but actually doing nothing, to causing multiple paper jams in the photocopier whilst attempting to create an A5 stapled booklet, to worst of all, turning up at the wrong location completely. No, ‘a bad day at the office’ needs a little bit more qualification.

On Friday, at least the Bears turned up but given that three of the major items on the agenda for the evening’s work was to have a solid set piece, to be competitive at the break down and to score more points than the opposition, then you have say that from a fan’s point of view it was one of the worst types of bad office days – the one where there is lots of purpose at the start but ultimately ends in minimal end product.

At least you know where you stand with total incompetence and can learn to live with it. Ask Bath. But living with ‘flattering to deceive’ is another level and is one of the biggest fan killers out there. I almost wish that the Bears hadn’t got back to 20-20 with such a delicious try after the break because it made the subsequent disintegration of the scrum and associated dreams of winning all the more painful. The front row appeared to literally lose their heads in the second half, as scrum after scrum popped up, and when Gorge Kloska was subbed in after a final penalty count warning he must have glanced over his shoulder to check whether a reserved signed had been placed on the sin bin chair given the inevitability of what was likely to happen. It was credit to him that he wasn’t carded for at least ten minutes and to be fair by then the damage had been done.

It is very apparent, if it wasn’t so already, that the minimum requirement for providing the sort of platform that our backs need is a blended combination of flair and filth in the pack. Going coast to coast from broken play is one thing but to achieve sustainable try scoring success is another and to do that you have to be on the front foot more often than not. And in that sense, your game plan, whether it is to run, to kick, or to stick it up your jumper always comes back to the same thing – solid set piece, competition at the breakdown and just enough filth to keep the opposition on their toes.

That is exactly what Saints had and what we didn’t and despite a commendable defensive effort from Bristol, particularly in the first half, this platform afforded Alex Mitchell the freedom to snipe round the edges, to marshal his troops at will and to deliver quick ball to his strike runners who gobbled it up with glee. That Andy Uren recorded precisely zero metres in the game says it all and whilst most of the time he was more hapless than hopeless, the frequency by which he was forced backwards by a retreating scrum or a messy counter ruck, meant that he was no doubt relieved that Opta don’t publish minus numbers. Even his delicious 50:22 in the first half was an outlier in a generally underwhelming highlights package that also unfortunately contained a kick straight into a touch and an intercepted pass that both led to scores from the opposition.

Whilst it wasn’t Andy Uren’s fault that we lost the game by any stretch of the imagination, you do feel that his visit to Pat’s office on Monday morning may not have been the most comfortable one of his career and only tempered but the fact that he would have been behind the whole front row and the scrum coach in the queue.

For every Grand Design you need solid foundations of concrete dug deep into the turf. For every cherry on top of a cake you need a firm sponge base to hold it and for every rugby team that wants to score multiple tries you need a forward pack that yields to no one. If not then you run the risk of collapse and when you are a system addict like Pat Lam, you’ll only get a Five Star performance if every element is firing on all cylinders. In this sense the regular absence of seasoned merchants of filth such as Afoa, Byrne, Sinckler, Luatua, Morahan and Radrada is selling the Bears short at the moment and it doesn’t appear that we have the strength in depth to buy wins on a consistent basis.

But let’s finish on a positive note. Toby Fricker seems to be getting quicker and slicker with every game that he plays and has deservedly, and to be honest, surprisingly, cemented his place in the team with a series of high energy performances that does at least get the blood pumping, and although Henry Purdy was more pedestrian than piston it was great to see him back on the park. Charles Piutau made one trademark break from broken play in the second half which nailed most of his metres stats but otherwise cut a somewhat forlorn figure as he was starved of opportunity to shine and despite the clear deficiencies up front, Joe Joyce and Fitz Harding tried to sprinkle as much star dust as they could on a unit that lacked the grunt to go the distance.

However, with a tough assignment at Gloucester on Friday, we cannot afford to be bullied up front again. The return of Kyle Sinckler and John Afoa will be one solution but I do wonder whether we will also see a starting berth for Dan Thomas and even an appearacce out of the wilderness from Nathan Hughes as we strive to regain an upward trajectory.

After the nerve shredding anti-thrills of the visit to the Stoop, a long journey to Newcastle actually felt like a good thing. I mean, the Falcons aren’t a bad side, but it was hard to believe that they would rip the Bears to shreds in the same way Quins did and the thought of arm wrestling with some knarly northerners probably felt like a blessed relief for those who had experienced the shellacking in southwest London. As a lesser of two evils, the fixture at Kingston Park felt akin to jumping in an ice bath after the misery of running a marathon in the same way that that a bit of short, sharp self-flagellation quickly erases painful memories.

Mind you, with nine changes to the line up and even more youth making up the spare bears you did wonder whether there were as many psychological injuries as physical ones back at the HPC and of course, I imagine that Charles Piutau has it written in his contract that he can only play on proper pitches.

As a result, the expectations of getting any sort of result receded even further but ultimately, when it came down to it, we yet again ended up disappointed at getting nothing from the game. After doing quite well to weather a tight and forgettable first half that was more grunt than shunt, the Bears perked up in the second and gave the travelling faithful something to cheer about before falling in their swords in a way that has become all too familiar so far this season.

It’s not only the hope that is a fan killer but also the turnovers, the penalties and the inability to exert sustained pressure. The turning point in the game was probably when a bit of chirp from Harry Randall gave the Falcons at shot at goal after Ioan Lloyd was penalised for holding on and the ref marched the ball ten yards into kicking range. Not only did it gift the Falcons a chance to extend their lead but it also said much to them about Bristol’s fragile psyche, the weakness of which the hosts were able to exploit and ultimately use to see out the rest of the game with relative ease, cantering home in a manner that was really nothing much more than workmanlike. To use a racing analogy the Falcons were more like a doughty stayer than a champion chaser. Mind you, what they currently makes Bristol Bears is up for debate. A proven thoroughbred who has developed a temporary inability to go both course and distance perhaps?

Having listened to the way that the second half unfolded on the radio my initial rection on the final whistle was to lock myself in a darkened room and kick myself repeatedly in the nuts such was the frustration of the both the performance and the way in which I had been forced to experience it. However, I soon realised that this wasn’t helpful on many levels and decided to see what meaning I could glean from the various interviews after the game.

A somewhat resigned looking post-match Pat growled that individual errors had cost them the game and the fact that he had hauled Callum Sheedy off early in the second half after two missed kicks to touch and a comical knock on after trying a quick tap penalty meant you kind of knew who he was talking about. That said, the decision seemed a bit harsh as Sheedo hadn’t played that badly despite these errors and when Lloyd missed both a conversion and an easy penalty that would have given us a 10-7 lead going into the last quarter, you felt that despite his misdemeanors it would have been preferable to have kept the first-choice kicker on the pitch for the duration.

It was also interesting that he referred to ‘reflections’ rather than ‘learnings’, no doubt recognising that there needs to be as much a change up in the debriefing lexicon as the on-pitch game plan and will no doubt use some of his time off to have a glance at a thesaurus as well as the current playbook.

That said, I was more buoyed by Joe Joyce’s comments and although the Bears currently seem to be having more bad days at the Office than when David Brent had to start working for Neil from the Swindon branch, he did instill some confidence in me to believe that that unlike the hapless paper merchant the team will turn things around by being honest about their weaknesses, taking time in the bye week to reflect on their poor start and working hard to come back stronger for the next block. When Joycey said ‘we will come good’ my instinct was to believe him.

It also reminded me that it’s on all of us to keep the faith and not fall into the easy narrative of trying the throw out the baby with the bathwater. Clearly things are not clicking at the moment and maybe it is as much system as player error but let’s not forget the first half at Quins where we were all reminded of what we can do, and Apalati’s try against the Falcons also gave us a glimpse of what the plan is all about. We may be flopping about in the Doldrums just now with too many limp and flaccid jibs but it will only take a hint of a breeze to get us moving again and with what might be now considered two potentially winnable games then I do expect us to get some more wind in our sails.

Clearly it is a case of resetting expectations, taking each game as it comes and looking forward to a second half of the season where we will undoubtedly be stronger as big players return. One thing that we can be sure of is that we won’t get relegated so if that means we have to take some hits so that less heralded members fo the squad get valuable game time then so be it. The Bears’ project is a long term one and if that means some inevitable short-term pain then we all must take that on the chin and remember that rough or smooth the club has got stability that was only dreamed of ten years ago. Oh, and we’re above Bath.

The second half at the Stoop descended into comedy last Friday as the Harlequins wonderkid, Marcus Smith, swaggered off the bench to insert yet more misery into the Bears’ fragile psyche. By fronting a forty-five point hostile take-over of their half time lead he administered what can only be described as a corporate shellacking and if Bristol had been a public listed company, they would have been liquidated before the game was up. 

It was sobering viewing for both the visiting fans, and those melting down on their west country sofas, as despite spending the majority of the first half wildly celebrating the return of the high tempo, clinical and try-rich rugby to which they had become addicted they eventually saw their dreams empty as fast as a sweetie jar on Halloween.  

Where in the first half the pack had provided a solid platform, the half backs had pulled the strings and the back line had delivered the yards, in the second their collective confidence ebbed away like a low tide at Weston. Sure, there were key moments that went Quins’ way and sure, the Bears continued to try and play the only way they know how, but whichever way you look at it, the fact remains that Bristol’s knockout nemesis came back to bite them even harder than before and with over half a century of points on the scoreboard it began to feel like the painful, dark days of ‘Worcester away’.  

It’s hard to understand why things went so badly wrong so quickly. Clearly the Heenan yellow was a turning point and whatever you feel about the way that refs appear to go for the card before even taking a moment to try and unravel the complex dynamics of sixteen hefty men all grabbing onto each other for dear life in a maul, that doesn’t mean that shipping points at a regular clip straight after is a certainty.  

No, it appeared to me that with fourteen men the system was less the solution and more the problem as the Bears surrendered any sort of control by getting isolated and turned over at will. If ever there was a time for someone to suggest taking the heat out of the situation by keeping it tight or kicking it long and deep, then this was it. Sadly, it just didn’t seem like anyone had a Scooby what to Doo. That said, it’s easy to blame the players on the park for errors in judgement because as any soldier will tell you, in the heat of battle you go back to your training and if the training is to play one particular way, then perhaps you can start to make sense of what went on. If you do subscribe to the fact that the system was and always is the solution then ultimately the players were doing what they were told but simply weren’t good enough to execute it. 

And therein lies the conundrum. Was the system wrong or were the players underperforming for those ten minutes within an essentially correct game plan? Either way there was a catastrophic dereliction of duty somewhere along the line and the price was heavily paid. We await the next team sheet to see for whom the bell might have tolled but as John Dunne also said, ‘no man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main’. In other words, you win as a team, and you lose as a team so maybe they’ll all get a chance to redeem themselves at the weekend. 

So, regardless of why it all went wrong, how do fans process a result like this?  

Well, first you have to look at the arc of history. As most primary school historians will tell you Rome wasn’t built in a day and establishing an empire is a complex and time-consuming task. Despite this early season blip we are still in a position that only the deluded, the mentally deficient or the imbiber of hallucinogenic drugs would have believed as little as ten years ago and we know we have a stability around the wider structures of the club that should see us good for the next ten at least. If you think of those dark days as the time when Romulus and Remus were hiding in the cave being suckled by the she-wolf, the rebranding as the Bears marked the point when the former killed the later and a new chapter in history was born. That said, even Romulus had his ups and downs but look what the Romans achieved over time despite what the People’s Front of Judea might have thought. 

Secondly, and despite the horrors of the second half, we should take solace in the fact that for pretty much for the first time this term, we showed some of the magic that so inspired the fans last season. If the likes of Sam Bedlow can quickly move on, he will realise that he is making good progress and has much to offer. Piston Purdy was also a constant menace and in Fitz Harding we saw the emergence of a new star who brought a whole level of mobile filth to the proceedings despite the errant push that did little to help the cause when we rocking under the yellow card pump. 

Finally, we must pay tribute to the opposition. Not only were the likes of Smith, Lynagh and Green just simply electric, but the way that Alex Dombrandt and Andre Esterhuizen delivered 80 minute all-court games and Joe Marler used the veneer of hubristic nonsense to mask the serious quality of the defence that he offers, makes you realise that we were soundly beaten by a team who I suspect never once believed that they were going to lose. 

The reason we are so disappointed is because we were so inspired last year but as fans, we have to be realistic. No team has the right to rock up and win a game on reputation and no fan has the right to assume that every game will go they want it to. Both playing and supporting requires investment of time, energy and emotion and if times get tough then we all must dust ourselves off and go back into the heat of battle. 

And what better battle for redemption awaits than Falcons away? Schooled by the Grizzler in Chief himself, what more could the Bears ask for than a chance to put things right when the chips seem so far down. Win up north this weekend, get some points from Irish and Warriors in early November after a reflective bye week and we could be strolling back up the mountain with a break for the Premiership Cup to come and an assault on Europe for which to prepare.  

That’s the beauty of sport. You have to believe that you best game is still to come. 

If you feel the need for some group therapy, then click here for Episode 84 of Bears Beyond The Gate, a podcast made by fans for fans. 

In the area of geopolitics, countries strive to maintain and develop strategic advantage over each other by exerting a combination of what’s known in the business as hard and soft power. Hard power means getting your way by force whereas soft means by the power of persuasion. In a similar vein, Bath Rugby made a decent effort to wrestle back west country hegemony by deploying some serious ballistics in the weaponized trio of Bailey, Ojomoh and Muir, but Stuart Hooper’s gentler attempt to garner some influence on future results, by questioning the performance of the officials, was less soft persuasion and more sour grapes.

It masked the fact that in the second half, Bristol did finally get its geopolitical house in order with the pack exerting some control, pressure and domination by successfully invading Bath’s territory with a series of penalties, lineouts and rolling mauls which yielded two tries and a similar number of Bath related yellow cards. It was the rugby equivalent of the USA deploying its Pacific fleet to the South China Sea in response to a cheeky missile launch by North Korea.

That said, there is no question that Bath should have been further ahead at half time but whether they ‘deserved to’ is a moot point and there is nothing more unedifying than a Director Rugby diverting attention away from the failings of his charges than putting the blame squarely on the shoulders of the officials. Yes, maybe Tempo might have got the Ojomoh knock on wrong and yes, maybe there was some debate about the scrum penalties that went against them but you can’t moan too much about TMO intervention on one hand and then on the other, complain when a ref, who is literally on the spot, makes a call and sticks with it.

But what was also clear was that Charlie Ewels dropped both the ball and a bollock with the line at his mercy, Max Ojomoh just failed to dab down his own chip through, Orlando Bailey, for all his youthful brilliance and chutzpah, still missed some kicks at goal, Charles Piutau made a worldy of a last ditch tackle on Ellis, the Bristol pack put at least three promising red zone lineouts onto the butcher’s block and Semesa Rokoduguni was momentarily seen floating under the Suspension bridge when Steve Luatua sold him down the river with a dummy so huge that it allowed him to swan dive over the line with the exuberance and technique of Augustus Gloop toppling head first into Willy Wonka’s chocolate river.

All of these things contributed to the fact that the score was 8-15 at the break, and to single out one of those factors in isolation, by bleating on about one or two marginal decisions rather than seeing the whole half in its holistic context, is just a classic diversion tactic, but one that contains little subtlety and excess hubris and should have no place in the arena of rugby punditry. Rather, it should be consigned to the pile of filthy verbal detritus that sits at the bottom of the stinking cesspit of post-match football manager sound-bitery that is regularly filled by the uncontrollable spew flowing out of the mouths of the likes of Jose Mourinho, ‘big’ Sam Allardyce and the Grand Wizard of one-eyed opinion forming himself, Neil Warnock.

No, I have nothing personally against Stuart Hooper, but his post-match interview simply confirmed that he is a man under pressure and one who lacks the eloquence, vocabulary and soft power persuasion to talk himself out of it.

But now that’s out of the way, lets focus on the positives of what was a thrilling spectacle for the neutral and an excruciating stress-fest for the faithful.

Bath were superb in the first half and thoroughly deserved their lead but were helped by a Bears’ defensive line that wasn’t just at sixes and sevens but was more like at eights and nines, as Ioan Lloyd rushed out quicker than a school kid getting to the front of the tuck shop queue whilst his more elderly mates struggled to keep up and at times, Bristol’s centre paring of Bedlow and O’Conor looked more bemused than a couple of pensioners at a rave as the ball floated over their heads to Bath’s heavily populated and under marshalled wings. Orlando Bailey spent most of the time giving Callum Sheedy a masterclass in how to break a rush defence and Max Ojomoh simply brimmed with pace, power and panache. Bristol hung on by their fingertips but showed plenty of signs that they were well in the game with the marauding Meader, Joe Joyce and his hirsute sidekick Ed Holmes, hunting for collisions, the Thomas and Sinckler lump axis feasting in the scrums and Harry Randall always looking sharp around the park and solid with his clearing kicks.

The second half was, however, a horror show for Bath and after Will Capon got the bullet for the Bears’ creaking first half lineout effort, the introduction of Jake Kerr sparked a resurgence for the pack which not only put points on the board but also inspired a greater confidence in the backline that ultimately won Bristol the game, despite the inevitable nerve shredding finale of having to defend Bath’s last ditch rolling maul.

It wasn’t pretty but for the Bears but it was a necessary and essential win that kick-started their Premiership campaign after what appeared to be the two pre-season games that they never had in rounds one and two.

There were several performances that will keep the fan happy. The scrum has gone from poor to parity to powerful in the space of three games, the rolling maul that was absent at Wasps showed up in the second half here, and the back row shuffle looked balanced and secure with Chris Vui, Jake Heenan and Steve Luatua providing some antipodean cheer.

In the backs Purdy, Piatua and Lloyd ran with purpose when they had the chance and O’Conor and Bedlow grew into the game after the first half shock of Bailey and Ojomoh. Sam Bedlow, in particular, put in a performance that will go some way to softening the blow of hearing the hugely disappointing news that Semi Radrada will be out for an almost unbelievable 16 weeks. The Bears will need this underused weapon to mature fast as whilst he is currently a grenade that can cause sporadic damage, we need him to quickly become an intercontinental missile that has the potential for exerting maximum carnage on opposition centre lines if we are going to haul ourselves back up the table.

Post-match Pat looked relieved that we had won knowing that he has something to work with as he prepares the team for the journey to what will undoubtedly be a cock-a-hoop Stoop on Friday. The question of whether the squad has got over the nightmare of Bristanbul will soon be answered in south west London at 7.45pm on Friday and at the very least a gutsy performance is what fans will want, even if an away win may be a little too much to ask at this point.

Either way it is sure to be a fun game. C’mon Bris!

If want to hear more then click here for Episode 83 of Bears Beyond The Gate and hear what the lads from the Harlequins Pod think about their chances.

If winning the league in the regular season is akin to reaching the top of a mountain, then losing in a semi final play off is like realising it was only a false summit just as you start sliding back down to a painful death.

Bristol’s dream of a historic Premiership final appearance at Twickenham expired on Saturday afternoon in an avalanche of missed opportunities, Harlequins tries and multiple injuries as a commanding first half lead evaporated into an excruciating, painful and inexplicable defeat that beggared belief and made a mockery of the concept of game management.

It was Camusian in its absurdity, precipitating an existential crisis amongst both players and fans as the game accelerated into extra time.

In his wide sweeping analysis of the capitalist world system, Karl Marx once mused that ‘all that is solid melts into air’ but little did he know that 173 years later his prophesy would manifest itself so sharply on the hallowed turf of Ashton Gate. If Bristol had been the undisputed owners of points production in the first half, then the Harlequins players rose from the ranks of the proletariat in the second, to wrestle the means of that production from their enslavers and unite in a rugby revolution that will live long in the history books.

In knock out rugby there are no learnings. You win. You lose. You raise your head in glorious victory or you hang it in miserable defeat.

On Saturday Bristol lost and in doing so rendered their fans bereft by the manner in which their lofty position at the top of the league after the regular season was revealed to be no more than a cruel chimera – something that had been hoped for but was, in fact, simply illusory. A false summit that promised everything and ultimately delivered nothing.

If it had been nip and tuck all the way then it might have been easier to take. But after the Bears had gorged themselves on probably the most delicious smorgasbord of running rugby that the majority of spectators had probably ever witnessed, they then found themselves reaching for the Rennies as a rapid heartburn took hold. Literally.

Slain at the hands of a swashbuckling foe who were all but dead and buried, but found a way to fight back from their terminal slumber and inflict a mortal wound on the souls of the Bristol faithful who were left to watch helplessly as their hopes drifted into oblivion.

Of course, things were looking very different at half time.

After 35 minutes Bristol were on track to deliver the perfect performance. Focused, clinical and explosive, the team could not have executed a better game plan. It was simply orgasmic as wave after wave of blue battered the Harlequins’ back line as attack after attack was launched from all over the pitch. The court jesters from the Smoke were steamrollered and spent the majority of the half clinging to a precipice as the Bears stamped on their fingertips.

The pack were the fluffers, delivering possession at will but the likes of Charles Piutau, Max Malins and Semi Radrada were the main stars. It was rugby porn on an industrial scale, and it seemed like Quins were only there to arouse the beasts.

The way that Bristol dismantled their opposition’s shaky defence, hitting gaps at will and offloading at leisure, was more continent to continent than coast to coast and as the fans screamed deliriously, the scoreboard operator worked overtime to keep up.

Andy Uren commanded his tops like a modern day Napoleon, Callum Sheedy waved his wand like Rattle at the Albert Hall and even big Dave Attwood got into the act by galloping down the wing like Denman at the Gold Cup. At that point, it wasn’t a case of whether the Bears would win but rather by how much.

And then, like a relationship that reaches the end of the honeymoon period it all went sour. Bristol’s familiarity with the oval led to contempt with its possession. Where Bristol has been coherent, they suddenly became disjointed. Where thinking had been clear it became clouded, and where confidence had been sky high it plumbed to the depths.

It’s very hard to process what happened in the second half and I suspect that the coaches will have to run the data through a NASA mainframe to make sense of it but somehow, inexplicably, there was a tectonic shift in momentum that lead to a tsunami of Harlequins’ points.

Gifting them two simple tries five minutes either side of half time didn’t help. Kings Charles getting injured was also a major factor, but to me, at 28-12 we still had plenty of time to shut up shop, slow things downs and start packing for Twickenham.

However, the Bears’ aching desire to run the ball from their own 22 was ultimately the trigger that started the landslide. It has been a brave and proactive strategy that has enthralled and alarmed Bristol fans in equal measure all season, but it comes with high risk, and when Andy Uren threw out a head high pass that required hospitalisation to Dave Attwood that he failed to control (admittedly having had to skip over an opposition player who was clearly obstructing first) which allowed James Chisholm to rumble over, you could then see the panic starting to set in with the Bears and the confidence grow with the Quins.

The rest of the half was a blur. As the phenomenal away support roared their charges to victory the Bristol faithful clutched to any straw of momemetum swing that came their way. A line break here, a turnover there. Any sign that the descent to the ninth level of Dante’s inferno might be checked was applauded but ultimately the devil was in the detail. Bristol squandered opportunities and coughed up possession when it really mattered as the game became more frantic. It was like being on a two week all inclusive holiday in the sun where the clouds starting rolling in at the start of the second and the remainder of the stay involves furtively checking the forecast for any break in the gloom. To say that the 6000 home fans were in a constant state of anxiety for the majority of the second half was an understatement and the way in which their emotions had been stretched to the extreme in both directions almost made it a medical emergency.

And then, with bodies littered all over the pitch, it was over. The sound and the fury subsided and despite topping the league since game week six, Bristol will never be able to say they were 2021 Premiership champions. Whilst the result ultimately revealed the absurdity of the play off system in all its naked glory, there are no excuses. Everything was aligned. There was a full squad to pick from, there was a passionate crowd, and there was a 28-0 point lead after 35 minutes.

Losing in that context should never happen and it seems inexplicable that they did.

It will take a long time for many fans to get over this last crazy game of an unprecedentedly crazy season, but when they do, they will realise that we should still be immensely proud of what has been achieved. The Bears have lit up the Premiership with a game that has excited the neutral and enthralled the faithful. It has made us proud to be Bristolians, both born, bred and adopted and it is a privilege for all of us to have been part of the journey.

One club, one community, one culture.

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 26^th 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!

It’s well over a week late, the Rugby Paper have already done a write up to which I can only aspire, and I’ve had a shed load of school reports to write but I’ve finally managed to rise from my slumber and pen my thoughts on one of the more extraordinary live sporting events that I have witnessed in my relatively average life. Put simply, it was a game that will live long in my memory as a piece of sporting theatre on a par with Saints winning the FA Cup in ’76 and Jonny Wilkinson kicking for glory in 2003.

A clandestine network of knock-ons, forward passes and penalty infringements forced the TMO to investigate Bristol’s trying scoring attempts on so many occasions that it made AC12’s pursuit of bent coppers look nothing more than routine stop and search. To say that he upheld virtually every passage of play to the letter of the law, the letter of the law, was no understatement and poor Craig Maxwell-Keys was presented with so many forensic reports that he must have felt that Ashton Gate was one massive rugby crime scene. The annoying thing was, however, that on every occasion, bar perhaps the early Sinckler try, the decisions were probably correct, but just like VAR’s gradual descent into madness over in the round game, the obsessive intervention of the TMO in the oval one has signaled a watershed moment in the long-standing and often unequal relationship between the laws of rugby and players’ loose interpretation of them.

No, a part of rugby union’s longstanding ethos of ‘getting away with it’ died last week and it does make you wonder where it will all end. Games refereed by robots, assisted by algorithms and reviewed in super slow mo? The All Blacks for one won’t be happy about that.

Moreover, when Charles Piutau and Andy Uren both knocked on in such an obvious manner that even the astronauts on the International Space Station texted in to say they had seen it clearly with their own eyes, it still didn’t stop the TMO from having another look, presumably to check whether there was a spelling mistake on the back of their shirts or that an errant shoelace had come loose on one their boots. Ironically whilst it now seems like a whole series of phases appear to be scrutinised before a try can be awarded, the fact that most players are continually offside at the ruck and no scrum half has managed put the ball in straight since about 1984 still appears to be beyond the wit of the officials to spot.

Anyway, enough of all that. What was really important about the occasion was that after 435 days, two false dawns and numerous hours listening to fake crowd noise real fans, with real voices, chanting real stuff finally returned to Ashton Gate.

It was a game to suit the occasion. Crazy, over the top, haphazard and firmly reconfirming the old adage that professional sport is nothing without the fans. They may be one-eyed, they may be bias, and they may rely more on emotion than reason when it comes to game analysis, but fans are the life blood that pumps through a contest. The players, coaches and officials may be the actors, but the fans are the stage upon which their endeavors are set, and their efforts judged.

Perhaps it might be only for one game, but the experience seemed transcendental, contextualising an aching social reawakening that has been too long in coming. There was something visceral in the way that the atmosphere and the experience was soaked up and spewed back out in a cacophony of noise and fury. Perhaps when we get used to live combat again the experience of it will eventually regress back to the mean of normality but for those of us who were lucky to be there that night it felt like a spiritual re-emergence from a forced and unwanted hibernation.

Of course, there was also a game going on and both teams played their part. From the moment that Sinckler crashed over for the first non-try to the finale when the godlike Radrada gave the fans what they have craved for so long by scoring in front of their eyes rather than through the screen, the match was exciting and frustrating in equal measure.

The Bears did what the Bears do and regardless of their red card Gloucester were always going struggle to stem the flow of Bristol’s ambitious attacking rugby. After an electric start from the hosts it seemed like it would only be a matter of time before the dyke would be breached and despite the TMO’s multiple fingers plugging multiple holes, the second half eventually delivered a festival of free-flowing rugby with all Bristol’s stars playing their part. Malins, Earl, Hughes, Morahan and Piutau were outstanding but the highlight for most was the sight of Chris Vui galloping down the wing to execute a double dummy to unleash the King, that was so outrageous and so filthy that it briefly rendered the population of the Gate speechless bar the gentle mewing of delight as the whitewash was breached.

In the end it was nothing less than a romp and whilst the phrase, ‘Bristol gain a bonus point win’ has become something of a mantra this season, ‘a Friday night away game at the AJ Bell’ is thankfully only heard once a year. The word on the street is that Pat will be sending a strong side up to Manchester to seek revenge for the defeat earlier in the year but it will be a tough assignment, especially if Sale manage to keep all their players on the pitch. Either way we know that the team will be better prepared than they were before last year’s chastening trip and whatever Bears are unleashed it will be a tight contest.

As the business end of the season approaches and the peak of the mountain comes tantalisingly into view every performance and every result will be loaded with significance. Come on the Bears!

As victories go, Bristol’s fourth win on the trot against them from the down the road was as comprehensive a one as you are likely to see, even with the 15-point head start Bath were generously handed in the first quarter of the game. Given the dominance that the Bears have had over this fixture in the last two years it was perhaps only fair for the visitors to introduce some sort of handicapping system into the contest but unfortunately for Bath they had none of the qualities of a top-class stayer from which to take advantage.

Rather, their performance resembled that of a handy young gelding who goes off the bridle far too quickly, gets pulled up way before the finish and returns to the paddock to find his trainer flicking through the pages of a dog food magazine. Realistically, Bath offered very little apart from a tedious reliance on box kicking, a somewhat psychotic desire to smash Callum Sheedy at all costs and the wherewithal to feed off a couple of early scraps that were less handed to them on a plate and more served a la carte by a waiter dressed in a full tuxedo and auditioning for a permanent job at the Manoir des Quatres Saisons. Ultimately, the final score didn’t lie and on another more clinical day the hosts could well having been looking down the barrel of a 50-point deficit way before Bristol elected to bring on the spare bears to finish the job.

However, it was a bonkers start to the game as the visitors came out of the blocks so fast that they appeared to both literally and metaphorically trip themselves up by conceding two of the world’s greatest ‘against the run of play’ tries ever seen and you felt that if it continued then it wouldn’t be long before Norris McWhirter would be rising from the dead to induct them into the Guinness Book of World Records for the number of puzzled looks simultaneously appearing on human faces ever seen.

At that point Bath had been less on the ropes and more hanging off them with their budgie smugglers round their necks such had been the ferocity of Bristol’s early forays into enemy territory. However, one dropped ball and a fortuitous hack through later and they had their first try. Even the silence in the empty Rec was dumbstruck and when that was followed soon after by a simple interception, the previously mute Bath suddenly found their voices whilst Bristol appeared to get a severe case of the yips not seen since Ernie Ells six putted at Augusta in 2016.

However, unlike the Big Easy the Bears didn’t find it too hard to get back into the game and after brushing themselves off they soon started to reassert control thanks to a combination of forward grunt, all-court counter rucking and a tapestry of backline moves, which finally rewarded them a rolling maul try courtesy of a rejuvenated and slightly leaner Nathan Hughes, who bundled over the whitewash to get the Bears party started. At that point you felt that they had got their grip back on the game and despite trailing at the break it ‘definately’ felt that Bath would start to buckle if further pressure was to be applied.

The tale of the second half was one where what little confidence Bath had left began draining down the plug hole as Bristol flexed their forward muscles and stretched their backline patterns. Poor old Juan Shoeman was being given such a torrid time by a pumped Kyle Sinckler that it must have been a blessed relief for him to have been carded after the penalty try but after he trudged off, the League’s powerplay specialists had their paws in the honeypot and nothing was going to stop them licking it dry.

Bristol’s interplay and crash ball offloading was a delight to behold. There was one particular passage of play between Radrada, Luatua, Vui and Hughes that was pure South Pacific and only a one-eyed cockney, or Bath fan, would have begrudged the harmonious way they shifted the oval between themselves.

From that moment on it was only really a case of by how many the Bears would win, with Max Malins delivering a brace of tries and over 100 metres gained, albeit a large proportion of them on his tummy.

His first try which took them into the lead was brutal in its simplicity. A forward moving scrum just inside Bath’s 22 allowed the first receiver to take the ball at pace and then it was nothing more revolutionary than straighten, draw the man, pass and repeat and at 21-15 it pretty much became one way traffic. The Bath players must have felt that they were riding a moped the wrong way round Silverstone at the height of the British Grand Prix such was the flow of possession, but unfortunately for them there was no safety car to bail them out. When Preistland managed to kick a 22 drop out into touch on the full, to gift Bristol another scrum, the collective hanging of heads in the Bath pack told you everything you needed to know about their rapidly disintegrating mindset. The writing wasn’t just on the wall, it was being sprayed all over the floor as well.

After their torrid lineout failure against Montpelier, Bath were now facing a scrum disaster of similar proportions and with their set piece being investigated by the Advertising Standards Authority and a trip to Sale next up on the fixture list, you almost felt sorry for them.

Almost.

But if you don’t sort out the basic rugby foundations of catching, pushing and tackling then your game plan is ultimately built on sand. Whereas Bristol rectified their first half issues, Bath kept on trying to do the same thing that wasn’t working and eventually sunk without trace.

When the bonus point finally arrived via King Charles, Bristol were in cruise control and rapidly ascending the mountain as Bath slipped back to base camp. A consolation try from Anthony Watson, who made Ioan Lloyd look, just for once, that he really is only 19 years old, was at least one bright moment for them but when Ben Spencer and Will Muir were substituted and wandered off with facial expressions of which even hang dogs would be ashamed, it was pretty much game, set and match although as well as eventually scoring six tries Bristol also managed to add a couple top class disallowed ones to their bulging showreel.

The best was the one on 45 minutes when Nathan Hughes collected a cross kick from Callum Sheedy after a passage of play that was so good, contained so many carries, offloads and line breaks and was so nourishing to the rugby soul that you felt that just for once BT Sport could have turned all French TV producer-like and declared that there was no angle available to see any possible knock on from the unfortunate Luke Monahan thereby preserving the sanctity of Bristol’s desire to bring joy and exultation to the world in union.

But no. It wasn’t to be. Hughes looked disappointed and the Wizard of Moz checked his wand and jogged back to his mark.

Overall, it was a comfortable victory for the Bears but the early scare was useful in forcing the team to problem-solve on the hoof. If they are to win their first domestic title, then figuring out how to shift the momentum back their way in a tight game will be key and the more practice they get at it, the better. With fans finally returning for the next fixture against an improving Gloucester and one of English rugby’s more unpalatable fixtures in an away trip to the AJ Bell to come, challenges still await but the summit of glory is getting ever nearer.

You can hear more analysis if this game and a preview of the next by clicking here and listening to the latest episode of Bears Beyond The Gate, Bristol rugby’s best (and only) podcast made by fans for fans!

You grin when you win, and you learn when you lose. One thing we discovered last Friday is that if you rattle the Chiefs then it doesn’t matter how many braves you have in your team, sometimes you just have to take a beating on the chin. But history also tells us that if a single battle is lost then the war can still be won. The Bears were certainly taught a lesson but potentially their learnings may well have been more beneficial than those of their opponents. From the short-term bitterness of the loss that fans will have felt after having supped heartily from the goblet of an eight-game unbeaten run, there may well come a sweet long term gain if Bristol manage to use this experience to quench the deep thirst for a Premiership title come June 26^th at Twickenham.

Despite Bristol’s electric start and their laudable huff and puff right up to the death, Exeter Chiefs reclaimed the west country’s rugby honours with a certain degree of ease. It was big boy pants stuff from the visitors and sadly Bristol had their budgie smugglers revealed, if not pulled down by a team that were well drilled, fully prepared and had not only done their homework, but had clearly handed it in early, got it marked and achieved A*s all-round, with Jacques Vermeulen, Sam Simmonds, and Jack Nowell all graduating to the top of the class. Vermeulen edged the other two as teacher’s pet on account of getting BT Sport man of the match but Simmonds may well get the greater reward of a Lions berth on the back of his performance. Surely only a rugby coach dripping in hubris can fail to see what a fully tooled up filthy rig the boy is.

But really, why wouldn’t have Exeter been so effective? The current English and European champions will not have enjoyed watching the nation’s rugby epicentre slowly creeping up the M5 and with the warning bells ringing as it reached Sedgemoor services, they knew that a statement had to be made before it hit Gordano. No doubt taking his inspiration from Superintendent Ted Hastings and his merciless pursuit of bent coppers, Rob Baxter went about arresting the perceived corruption of their recent dominance with a clear operational plan. Like when a new kid joins the class and becomes everyone else’s bestie he realised that his charges had no choice but to stand up and reclaim their dignity or they would be doomed to spend the rest of the season cowering in the corner wondering why no one liked their briefcase anymore.

But let’s not take anything away from the Bears. More credit needs to be given to their efforts than they received from some quarters. After a blistering start, when Charles Piutau rolled out of Bristol’s 22 with the ferocity of a typhoon making landfall and Andy Uren appeared to rearrange Newton’s three laws of motion to somehow skip over the whitewash from 20 yards out, you wondered whether this would be the beginning of the end for the Chiefs. However, they quickly grew into their game plan, thanks to a desire to maintain their lofty position in the rugby hierarchy as well as from some rather laissez faire refereeing from Wayne Barnes. You had to admire them though, and the way that they counter rucked in particular, and dominated the breakdown more generally, albeit on either sides off the law, enabled them to gain a first half advantage that they just about managed to maintain to the end despite actually losing the second.

As the old adage goes, possession is nine tenths of the law, and in this respect the Chiefs were able to reinforce their dominance and get the result they wanted and only a Bristol fan fully immersed in a hot tub of Thatchers Gold would say that they didn’t deserve the win. As is the way with these sorts of close combat ties, it is the management of the ebbs and flows that is the key to winning and ultimately the collective cut of Exeter’s jib meant that they were able to plot a course through the choppy waters that the Bears whipped up. Over the entirety of the game they out-gunned, out-thought and out-boxed their opponents, but it wasn’t by much. The game was gladiatorial in its intensity and brutality and was as compelling to watch as anything that has been seen so far this season. Tiny margins were amplified and small mistakes punished.

No doubt to the delight of the watching neutral fans, the big players in both teams stepped up and were counted. For the Chiefs, Jack Nowell prowled the park like a ravenous predator hunting the weak, and in Niyi Adeolokun, unfortunately found the antelope that his big cat appetite craved. The pace and physicality of Simmonds was extraordinary and as for Jacques Vermeulen, the Chiefs had less a work horse and more a mighty Pegasus winging his way into contact as if his life depended on it. There were others equally impressive. Devoto and O’Flaherty maintained their current form and in the pack, the front five to a man were fearsome in the tackle and forceful in the carry.

That said, many of the Bears also impressed but most didn’t quite manage to get a higher rating than their opposite numbers. Perhaps Piers O’Conor was one and Andy Uren another but Charles Piutau did at least win the battle of the two full backs and when you are talking about someone as box office as Stuart Hogg then this is a pretty big achievement. Hogg is pure class but even he would struggle too execute a delayed triple dummy pass like King Charles did to set up Luke Morahan’s late try. It was pure Harlem Globetrotter and managed to get the usually phlegmatic David Flatman on BT Comms to mew like a kitten as the play unfolded.

The other standout feature of the game was a reminder of just how far the collective skill sets of forwards have become in recent times. Yes, there have been one or two in the past who have lit the blue touch paper – John Eales scoring outrageous drop goals for the Wallabies is one that comes to mind – but that was always the exception rather than the rule. Most of the time the lumps of the past would barely have been able to pick the ball up, let alone pass it, preserving most of their energy for haymakers and head buts, and as for their legs, the majority of their brain power was used to ensure that one foot went in front of the other in some sort of order that allowed them to stay upright. But when Johnny Hill cleared his 22 with a 60 yard spiral like Wurzel Gummidge on steroids and John Afoa attempted his standard no-look inside pop pass, it reinforced the fact that thankfully those days are over. Modern rugby is a 23 man affair and long may it continue.

So, the Chiefs came and got what they wanted but the Bears will lick their wounds and know that when they are back to full strength and come up with a strategy to counter the game plan that Exeter will surely use against them in future contests, there is a lot to be optimistic about. Exeter needed the win to keep ahead of the chasing pack but Bristol are still seven points clear.

The upshot is that the season is steaming towards a climax where, if justice is to be done, these two sides will be meeting again in south west London for a shown down that will make the Gunfight at the OK Coral look like a playground scuffle. Wyatt Earp or the Cowboys? Time will tell.

If you want to hear more about this game then click here for the episode 70 of Bears Beyond The Gate, a podcast made by fans for fans.

In the heat of battle, sometimes the best laid plans of mice and men can go awry and sadly for the Bears their European adventure was exterminated by the cool cats from Bordeaux-Begles who found a way to halt their assault on the Champions Cup. Despite some questionable officiating, the Bears were, at times, also the authors of their own downfall and ultimately more Jackie Collins than John Steinbeck when it came to the quality of the script that they wrote for the game.

When the line ups were announced it looked like Bordeaux only appeared to have three things going for them – size, speed and skill – so rather than relying on the previous game’s special forces smash and grab behind enemy lines when the main battle had looked all but lost, it was clear that this time round the Bears would need to focus on an all-out offensive. By including the likes of Yann Thomas, Kyle Sinckler, Dave Attwood, and Nathan Hughes from the start, and deploying Chris Vui to the back row, there was no doubt that the heavy artillery was being lined up for a serious bombardment on the Bordeaux lines before unleashing the cavalry of General Sheedy, Brigadier Radrada and Wing Commander Piutau. However, whilst the hope was for an Agincourt, ultimately it became a Hastings as the hosts arrowed towards victory in the final quarter of the game as the previous 60 minutes had ebbed and flowed between the peaks of high skill and the troughs of low discipline. This time, however, there was to be no reprieve.

That said, the omens had been good before kick-off as the players made their way along what was described by the TV commentary team as professional rugby’s longest tunnel, although calling it a tunnel was somewhat disrespectful to all subterranean walkways the world over, as it appeared that the players actually emerged from a shopping mall, crossed a road and then climbed up several flights of stairs before finally making it onto the pitch. The Bristol subs made an excellent effort to whip up their teammates into a frenzy with some vigorous shoulder slapping, manic whooping, and military style boot stamping and in Jake Woolmoore’s case, a full-on body shake not seen since the early days of acid house. Moreover, John Afoa attempted to get a psychological advantage over Bordeaux’s grizzly coach Christophe Urios, by giving him a friendly pat on his substantial buttock as he walked by. To say he looked less than amused is an understatement, but the big prop got away with it by hiding behind Semi’s beard and it clearly spurred the team on, as within six minutes a glorious sweeping first phase move allowed Henry Purdy to slice through the French defence like a hot knife through an oven-baked camembert and at that point you felt that there would be the chance of many more cheese related analogies to come as the Bears went about their business with a certain amount of brie-o.

But unfortunately, like a longstanding, yet irritating friend that you can never get rid of, ill-discipline had other ideas. Gifting a player like Jalibert penalty after penalty within his kicking range was tantamount to a court marital offence and it seemed like Bristol’s game sense decided to go AWOL on too many occasions. It was telling that at the end of a half where they had looked relatively comfortable and at times dangerous, they still went into the break one point in arrears.

And so, the second half followed a narrative to which Bears fans have become worryingly accustomed but this time there was no fairy tale ending. Usually, there is the odd turning point that will determine the outcome of a close game but in the second half there were so many that it felt like the contest was spinning round in circles. On one hand there was Bristol’s failure to be clinical when it really mattered and on the other, there was the officiating’s descent into pantomime. Progressing from a pretty steady effort in the first half to a Widow Twanky-like one in the second, the ref did two of the worst things that anyone in authority can if they want to lose control of a situation: first, to change your mind on a decision that you have already made with your own eyes by relying on inconclusive video evidence from a French TV producer who has been ingesting Absinthe through an intravenous drip for the previous six hours and secondly, to blatantly bottle a clear and easy decision as when Harry Randall was bodychecked less than a metre into a tap and go penalty. By shouting ‘play on’ the ref not only let the Bordeaux player off the hook of a yellow card but then gave their flanker carte blanche to smash the poor lad into kingdom come. Forget about being a supercharged Duracell bunny. As Harry Randall was lying face down and barely conscious on the turf like roadkill on a twelve lane American freeway, he must have been wondering what precisely he had done to annoy the rugby gods. Since being selected for the England squad with great fanfare and outpouring of Bristolian love way back in January, he has subsequently played zero rugby, that is, the thing that got him picked in the first place, spent most of the training camp running after overhit Ben Youngs box kicks until he got injured and then had to return to Bristol and see his good mate Callum Sheedy swaggering around the HPC with a Six Nations title wining medal round his neck whilst all he had to show for his enforced time away was a basic certificate of attendance and a few bottles of Molton Brown shampoo that he had nicked from from his hotel room. Living the international dream.

But on the plus side, one benefit that did come out of the second half officiating was that it definitely improved the UK’s generally poor knowledge of foreign languages. There aren’t likely to be many watching Bears fans who now don’t know that ‘examen par l’arbitre’ means ‘TMO review’ in French, given the number of times it was flashed on the screen, and although the ref did penalise Bordeaux just as much Bristol, he spent so much time shouting ‘lachez, lachez’ at their tacklers that you felt it would have been fairer on his vocal chords and the actual rules of the game if he had simply blown his whistle and given a penalty. If you are constantly telling the tacklers to let go, then it kind of suggests that they aren’t letting go, so you blow your whistle and you give a penalty. It really should be that simple. Otherwise, you fall into the trap that every ineffective parent has done over the years by threatening to take the sweets away from their kids but never actually doing it and then wondering why they end up with multiple fillings by the time they reach adulthood. Or maybe he was just getting all hot and sweaty in the midday sun and was simply hallucinating about the imminent opening of the pubs back the UK. 

Having said all this however, it is dangerous to lapse into what historians call ‘counterfactuals’, as it is a meaningless and thankless task to go back over all the ‘what ifs’ and it achieves the square root of precisely eff all. The result will never change. We will never know whether Bristol would have gone onto win if the Jalibert try had been given as a five-metre scrum. Maybe they would have scored from that and maybe Bristol would have incurred a yellow card. And even if the penalty for the body check on Randall had been given, who’s to know whether Bristol would have capitalised on the one-man advantage. You couldn’t say they had been particularly clinical up to that point and in fact when Bordeaux did go down to 14 players, they ended up scoring anyway.  Nope, whilst some of the decisions were shockingly bad, what is also true is that in the second half Bordeaux competed like demons, defended like trojans and upped their peckers to the extent that it was hard to begrudge them their victory. The fact of the matter was that Bristol only really managed to break through on one occasion and even then, Lady Luck shat on poor Purdy as the ball was dislodged just as he was about to touch it down. The final result is always a product of factors that teams can and cannot control, coming together in time and space to deliver a verdict that ‘is what it is’. If you are upset that you have had a ball displaced and it is given as a knock on, then get yourself into a position to score again, and if you aren’t happy that the ref has started penalising you unfairly, then put the opposition under more pressure so he turns his attention on them. Never has ‘you either win or you learn’ been more apt. If you can’t take control of a situation then you are risking events taking control of you. Despite his obvious disappointment it looked like this week’s post match Pat also sensed the same, despite his sunburnt cheeks and wry smile. He knows.

Every lost game is disappointing and hopefully the Bears will not be too hard on themselves by the manner of the defeat. Bordeaux-Begles are a top French side and for a lot of the game they had to fight tooth and nail on their home patch to secure the victory, which was clearly a lot narrower than the final score suggested. The story of the game was Bristol starting brightly but eventually fading and being unable to find a way of changing the narrative when the game started to go away from them. As usual there was no lack of effort and, given the state of the Covid levels on the continent, it’s probably not the worst thing in the world to have come back from France with a negative result. At least now the squad have got a chance to recharge batteries and re-cut their jibs after a brutal tour of recent duty. The boys will be hurting, both literally and metaphorically, but a few days of reflection in Semi’s sauna will no doubt remind them that whilst they have been subdued by one mountain there is still another one to conquer. The race to the Premiership summit continues! 

If you want to hear more about this game then click here and head over to the latest episode of the Bears Beyond The Gate podcast, made by fans for fans!

There are some things in life that just don’t make sense to me. Non-alcoholic beer. Tofu. And the way that Bristol Bears manage a game of rugby. For the second week in a row, they stared defeat in the face but then casually flipped it the bird with a fearless come back display at the death, pulling yet another bonus point victory out of the bag like Paul Daniels extracting a rabbit from his hat at the height of his prime-time pomp. However, the last minute encore was no illusion and, in fact, marked the perfect finale to a breathless, exhilarating and at times outrageous game of rugby, and one that was fitting for a clash between the two most exciting teams in the Premiership.

When the team lists were announced on the Friday, they were so filthy that most Premier Rugby fans probably had to have a full body hose and a lie down before contemplating the fireworks that were to come. Since dispensing with Paul Gustard not long after the Bears humbled them in the second half at the Stoop on Boxing Day, Harlequins have been on somewhat of a roll, dishing out bonus point victories like confetti as the heavy artillery of Marler, Care and Brown finally decided to lead by example whilst the younger bucks of Smith, Dombrandt and Marchant had provided the stardust and sparkle. For their part, Bristol were welcoming back the League’s bona fide superstar, Semi Radrada, who’s beard appeared to have grown slightly bushier during his injury lay off, but his rig looked as filthy as ever and no doubt he had been advised by Max Lahiff to talk to his ancestors and get up close and personal to the opposition, but not in that way.

So, with so many tasty match ups across the pitch you half expected those team sheets to appear on the landing page of Deliveroo.com with John Afoa and Joe Marler the daily special, and no doubt sparking a bun fight amongst all the major global streaming services to secure the rights to the referee’s microphone. Moreover, when BT Sport flashed up each team’s season attack stats during the warm up, it left viewers salivating more than a pack of rabid Pavlov’s dogs who hadn’t eaten for a month and happened to be passing Big Ben at 6pm. All the planets appeared aligned for a humdinger of a game. 

The only dampener on the whole proceedings, however, was the appointment of the relatively, ok completely, unknown Hamish Smales as ref. Looking more like the lost Wurzel than a topflight adjudicator or perhaps more fittingly, an extra from Monarch of the Glen given his forename, his pick was clearly the result of the rearranged Six Nations game in Paris the night before, as you felt that a Wayne Barnes or a Luke Pearce would have been given the whistle in normal circumstances, just to squeeze a few more tickets out at the virtual box office. That said, despite the fact I kept expecting him to finally provide fans with the answer to ‘where be that blackbird to?’, I thought he had a reasonable game, although his style and hair/beard combo was definitely more friendly Geography teacher than confident Franglais speaker like the Paris mob. In fact, I was somewhat disappointed that he didn’t have padded elbows on his shirt and Hush Puppies on his feet. Talking about hair, Joe Marler had clearly decided to get an early shot in against Afoa by arranging his barnet in such a way that it emphasised that he actually had some, but in fact it made him look like a cross between Northampton’s Teimana Harrison and Exeter’s Johnny Hill. And that’s not a good thing as both have recently been referred to the HLO (Horrendous Lid Ombudsman). Taking of lids and match ups, Danny Care vs Andy Uren was an interesting follicular head to head. Literally.

Anyway, the game pretty much lived up to its pre match hype and turned in to a late, late show win for the Bears, even trumping the comeback they made against Saints the week before. It’s great being a Bristol fan, don’t get me wrong, but it seems like since we beat Bath, every match has been a game of chicken for the fans. Just as we think we are finally going to lose one, we survive by the skin of our teeth. In fact, it seems to have become so habitual that post match Pat now seems at ease with the situation and even managed to crack a joke about it after the match, warning the faithful that we should more of the same.

But, both teams showed why they are hunting the turf at Twickenham and with three excellent tries in the first half the Bears should really have been further ahead. It was rather fortunate that Marcus Smith’s kickable first penalty hit the post but there was nothing lucky about the way that big Dave Attwood collected the rebound, shimmied past Joe Marchant and then popped it to Captain Fantastic to set up a coast to coast try that the big man finished himself. To say he cantered over the line was a fair description as sprinting has never been in the vocabulary of hefty second row forwards, but for a split second you thought he was going to give it a full blow swallow dive but he clearly changed his mind at the last minute and executed the sort of belly dive for which you applaud your child when secretly you know it is shit.

After that the Bears did that irritating thing where you let the opposition score every time you pop a worldy. It’s probably not worth mentioning the way that Danny Care stripped the ball from ‘England’s’ Ben Earl as easily as a teenage mugger relieving a pensioner of her handbag and he was probably only saved a towel whipping from his teammates at half time thanks to the mitigation provided by Andy Uren’s ugly pass to him in the first place. Uren redeemed himself with Bristol’s second try when his delicious flat pass enabled the human cement mixer, Bryan Byrne, to lay some Quins tarmac and set up Fitz Harding for the dab down, but they left the best until last when Radrada marmelised a brave but ultimately doomed pincer tackle from the Quins half backs and offloaded to wing man extraordinaire, Piers O’Conor. In fact it could be described as a ‘quantum’ offload in the way that it laid waste to the normal laws of physics. Semi had an erratic game but with six offloads in total there was no arguing the havoc that he wreaked.

However, some canny game management which included a few Smith penalties and an opportunistic Danny care drop goal (yes, a drop goal!) meant that the Bristol lead was only four points at the break. No doubt after the team had finished giving Earl a wedgie, Pat’s message must have been very simple: keep the penalty count down, control the game and give the ball to Semi. But in trying to build a commanding second half lead, sadly, the Bears were the architects of their own downfall. It seemed like every time they got themselves into a potentially dangerous position they managed to relinquish possession and in searching for the blueprints of victory they only found a few illegible notes that had been chucked in the recycling. At 21-33 down with 5 minutes to go and not having added to their half time total, it even suggested that team had clearly paid more attention to the half time Earl debagging than their DoR’s advice.

But cometh the hour, cometh the trusty rolling maul. For the first Dan Thomas try, the TMO actually came to the Bears assistance by pointing out that he was short of the line on account of the wind resistance caused by his shorts being down by his knees and did us a massive favour by affording the ref the opportunity to award a penalty try and thereby avoiding a tricky conversion. Suddenly hope sprung like a bunch of dancing daffodils and when the Bears secured another lineout deep in the 22 as the clock turned red, everyone knew it wasn’t just a case of if, but who, would score the try. Like one huge Eton Wall game fifteen Bears drove for the line only for Kyle Sinckler to emerge with both the oval and the biggest smile we have seen on his face since his signing. This was no doubt partly due to having got one over on Joe Marler, who had probably been giving him serious and constant chirp during the second half, and partly because it’s always fun to survive a massive pile on. With Callum Sheedy stroking the conversion with all the coolness of the sort of player who has won a major international championship, the victory was secured.

It was tough on Quins to be fair, as Care and Smith had managed the game away from the Bears for most of the second half, but when you looked at the attack stats there was really only one team in it. As usual the coaches will be worried about the ill discipline as we march to Bordeaux, but with even more players returning and confidence remaining sky high, there is no reason to suggest that a major assault on the Champions Cup is possible with ‘I’d rather be a Bear than play a Bear’ the latest motivational poster stuck on the walls of the High Performance Centre.

If you want to hear more about this game and general light hearted Bears related rugby banter in general, then click here to listen to the latest episode of Bears Beyond The Gate, the only Bristol rugby podcast made by fans, for fans.