If Bristol’s assault on the Premiership title has been compared to ‘climbing a mountain’, then last Friday’s defeat of Wasps suggests that we are clearly out of the foothills and now making a serious push for the summit. More Everest than Brent Knoll in the scale of the potential achievement, Pat Lam will no doubt be drawing strength from the exploits of his fellow countryman, Sir Edmund Hillary, as he plots his way to the top. With a raft of willing Sherpas around him and a fan base dizzy with altitude sickness, the record books await.

As the first team to reach 50 points in the league and double figures in the win column, it was also a significant victory in the theatre of monkey back removal. Forget bogeymen, the Hornets of Coventry have had our number almost as long as Ioan Lloyd has been in formal education and have been regular serial killers to the hopes of Bristol fans. Beating them after 15 barren years required serious voodoo to banish the hoodoo and in Charles Piutau, we had a witch doctor who bedazzled the opposition with his twinkle toes and fancy feet. There have been rumours that Springsteen might be playing Ashton Gate next year on a European tour, but I have news for him – don’t bother son – as we already have a Boss in BS3 who is born to run, and at times on Friday, was also on fire.

Having said all this, I wasn’t that confident in the run up to the game. Despite their own injury woes, Wasps still named a pretty solid looking 15 and although Piutau, Hughes and Byrne were making a welcome return, a huge Sheedy sized hole had emerged at half back. Given the fact that there had been official confirmation that certain players had thrown their hats into the ring it can’t have given Tiff Eden much confidence when Pat reluctantly chucked him the jersey. But it could hardly have gone better for the lad. Despite looking like a home counties grammar schoolboy with his rosy cheeks and curly hair I was mightily relieved when he emerged from the changing room without his briefcase and lunchbox,  relatively happy when he settled into his rhythm and positively whooping when, at one point in the first half, he out-jackaled the jackal merchants and slotted his own penalty. And to top it all he executed a perfect one-two off the upright to Niyi Adeolokun which eventually led to Joycey’s first ever Premiership try. Realising what a potent strategy it was he even tried it once again before the game was done. Where ‘post match Pat’ has generally been a bit grizzly in recent weeks, this time he seemed more serene in the garden of Eden.

I do like a Friday game in these lockdown days. After a full week at work, settling down with a couple of tinnies and a Pimms Pizza is about has good as it gets, and I was pleased to see that Mad Max Lahiff also agreed. Interviewed by the in-house media team with the clip released on Twitter, he delivered such a random piece of insight that any viewers who had stumbled on the channel by mistake must have wondered whether they were watching a Salvador Dali retrospective. From his starting position of rutting the post like an Ashton Park stag to his manic exclamation that ‘he loved it, loved it’, Max also professed to very much enjoy the long weekend that a Friday game afforded, presumably so he could spend more time reading the major works of the Surrealist movement whilst simultaneously sculpting his filthy rig down the gym. As the King of the non sequitur, I had to rewatch the clip several times before I had any idea what he was going on about. The clip has now gone so viral that an emergency meeting of SAGE has been convened and Boris Johnson is contemplating asking Max to be his new pandemic Tsar.

My pre match mood was further enhanced as BT viewers, that is, the only viewers, were served a lovely treat when skills coach Sean Marsden single handedly debunked the lazy theory that men can’t multi-task by running a full paced warm whilst simultaneously doing a Q&A with Craig Doyle and Ugo Monye. Like a breathless PE teacher drunk on the enthusiasm of his willing students, Sean took us through a complex array of drills that basically amounted to the clear message that doing the simple things well was the key to success. The pundits were awestruck when he even picked up his own plastic cones, clearly amazed that he had lowered himself to basic manual work. ‘Extraordinary’ mused Craig Doyle as a BT Sport runner moisturised his cheeks and handed him a glass of prosecco. It was a fantastic piece of TV and credit must go to both Sean and the production team who managed to find enough sticky tape to keep his microphone attached to his face as he sprinted around the pitch waving various colourful cards in the faces of the players as they rumbled past. Without wanting to diss the ‘normal times’ match day presentation team of Slick, Downsy and Brizzly Bear (remember them?) these little pre-match TV vignettes have been one of the bonuses of ‘TV only spectating’ and not having to mill around at Ashton Gate before home game queuing for a beer, watching a grown man in a Bear suit do one armed press ups and hoping that the dance cam operator doesn’t pick you out of the crowd and shame you in front of thousands has been quite a relief. Dance cam? I need to have a lie down.

So, heartened by the pre match entertainment and enthused by the warm up I was fully expecting Bristol to hit the ground running and accelerate into a healthy lead at half time from which they would just about claw a narrow win in the second period, as has been the narrative in recent weeks. However, to my surprise it was an opposite story as they soon raced to a 10 point defecit, after dominating territory, butchering two serious visits to the 22 and affording Carl Dickson the opportunity to be inducted into the crazy penalty awarding Hall of Fame when he pinged Dave Attwood for the lowest high tackle ever known to man. As someone remarked on Twitter, if the big man had ducked down any lower, he would have ended up in Australia. Dickson did, at least, seem genuinely apologetic about having to give it although the look on Dave’s face suggested it wasn’t a reciprocated feeling. However, he was soon able to vent his fury by executing a glorious carry that will forever been known as a ‘Sit down Fekitoa’. His marmelising of the chunky Wasp at full flight was like watching heavy lifting machinery lay tarmac on a new motorway and the fact that the commentary team spent well over five minutes analysing if from every possible angle says everything you need to know about Atwood’s contribution to the team effort. Forget climbing the mountain, he is the mountain.

Anyway, after a Charles Piatau line break that would make silk blush which led to a try from Piers O’Conor, a Premiership player more consistent than a bowl of perfect porridge, and a couple of Eden penalties, Bristol managed to haul themselves up to a 16-13 lead in the break. In some ways it had been an odd half. Despite trailing early, I never felt we were going to lose and, as we often seem to be saying at lot at the moment, on another day we could have been out of sight if we had turned pressure in to points. However, it took the somewhat fortunate one-two off the post that led to Joycey’s try to really get us going and then when Adeolokun scored in the corner with his first, meaningful carry of the match it felt that a solid four points were in the bag. However, Jimmy Gopperth literally delivered us a bonus by attempting an audacious cross kick along his own try line which merely led to a red zone lineout for us and a weary shake of the head for Lee Blackett. ‘Jimmy, will be Jimmy’ he said mournfully in his post match interview as yet another win bonus slipped by. Chris Vui’s eventual score was so unexpected that a certain Bears’ supporter ended up with a black eye after punching himself in the face whilst celebrating. If you want to find out more click here for the latest episode of Bears Beyond the Gate. 

So, all in all a solid and professional performance punctuated by moments of sheer brilliance, but one that applies further cement to our position at the top of the table. With more big players reported to be close to match fitness and only one Six Nations match remaining, the Bears look set fair to mount a twin peak challenge for domestic and European glory as we move into the business end of the season.

As was feared by most Bristol fans when the post Bath match haze of Thatchers Rose finally lifted, Sale Sharks snatched a grizzly win at the Gate that was mainly smash but with a decisive bit of grab at the death when Luke James dabbed down in the corner for a match winning try after Bristol had been leading by a point with seven minutes to go.

There are no real complaints. The Sharks had the perfect game plan to negate the free-flowing aspirations of Bristol by kicking for territory, forming an impenetrable defensive wall across the pitch, marmelising anything that moved and then picking up points from the ensuing penalties. Even their grey shirt colour was appropriate for their style of play and made them look filthy before a shot had been fired in anger. There is no doubt that Bristol were expecting an arm wrestle but in reality got a full-blown game of drop-down British Bulldog with a South African twist and very rarely made it to the other side. Full credit to Sale as they were utter machines, but in the end, Bristol just didn’t have enough rage against them to get the win. Whilst it is probably somewhat of an exaggeration and a bit unfair to say that Sale’s approach felt like the Antichrist to Bristol’s Angel Gabriel, the devil was certainly in their detail in the way they nullified the threat of the Bears but surely over the length of a season the neutral fan will hope that the glory of running rugby prevails. Hat tip to Alex Sanderson for the way he prepared his team and despite my previous reservations, his post-match interview was as respectful and humble to the contest as I had hoped, and I am sure that he had a good chat with Pat Lam post-match over a glass of Rose although he still couldn’t resist a TV moment with his plan for a ‘Lazy Malbec Sunday’.

The omens hadn’t been good before the game when Steven Luatua limped out of the warmup (even though his shuffling gate didn’t look much different than normal) and Pat announced that Semi Radrada would be out for at least six weeks and to add insult to literal injury the BT Sports Commentary team clearly had some sort of hat dare going on that diminished the gravity of the situation. I genuinely didn’t think that anyone could top Lawrence Dallaglio’s mid-life crisis reverse cap monstrosity from last week, but Craig Doyle pushed him mighty close with a piece of filthy cranial fashionwear that can only be described as unacceptable and of which even a garden gnome would be ashamed. 

Anyway, the first half developed in such a way that even Scrappy Doo would have disapproved and there was one passage of play in the first half that was so disjointed, so broken, that it was a blessed relief that someone knocked on and we were able to have something as solid and stable as a scrum for a few minutes. Sale’s defensive line was as straight and as wide as Baths’ had been jaggedy and gap-ridden and they clearly had no intention of letting Bristol’s’ flair players get any space whatsoever. Credit to them as they smashed every contact they were offered and shut down every bit of space out wide that briefly opened up. The fact that Bristol had to resort to box kicking on a regular basis is evidence of Sale’s success but there are times when the phrase ‘rapid line speed’ or a ‘great rush defence’ seems to be a euphemism for offside and it did seem like virtually every time Piers O’Conor received the oval he had at least two Sharks hitting him man and ball. It does make you wonder. And as for poor Siva Nualago, he must have been reflecting on what exactly he has signed up to. Apart from the opening try against Falcons he has had very little space to work in and having missed the metre-fest of the Bath game, must be wondering what Pat meant when he was sold on the concept of regular running rugby. And sadly it was a case of less piston and more paralysed for Purdy out on the wing this week.

That said, Bristol manfully tried to solve the puzzle that the Sharks had set and as usual their efforts cannot be faulted, but where the game against Bath was like playing Connect 4 against an infant and winning every time, this was more akin to working out the rules to Mah Jong as you go along. It was a contest of such small margins that on another day Bristol would have got the win and perhaps the failure to secure the rolling maul try on the cusp of half time was a turning point. Clearly both the officials saw no foul play as the Bristol shove miraculously collapsed just before the line with Sharks hanging off it like an outtake from the final scene in Jaws. It was also very odd how Luke Pearce initially seemed to dispense with the TMO and in the spirit of his desire to speed up every single part of the game asked, ‘Bristol – do you believe you scored that try?’ Given that I assume the answer was, ‘Yes,’ I don’t understand why he didn’t give it. Don’t ask questions if you can’t deal with the answer you get has always been one of my mantras but the fact that at one moment Sale were in retreat and in full panic mode and the next they have the put into a scrum makes me think it isn’t one that he subscribes to. Moreover, Luke Pearce really does like the sound of his voice and appeared to scream ‘use it’ within a millisecond of the ball emerging from a ruck or scrum as if he was more worried that both scrum halves were unaware that they were allowed to touch the ball rather than trying to get things moving. This has clearly become his ‘thing’ but if there isn’t consistency amongst all refs then it will become confusing and frustrating for both players and fans alike and after a while it really began to grate, reminding me of what I sound like trying to get my daughters ready for school. When there is school. And whilst I’m on one I may as well mention the suspicion that Will Cliff was offside on the kick through in the lead up to the final try which was actually a bit over hit and was somewhat fortuitously booted forward by Hammersley. Who would have thought that the outcome of a tight game of Union hung on a moment of poor Association Football skill? The fact that Bristol had been leading at the time makes it even more frustrating.

That said great teams find ways to adapt when things aren’t working and Bristol certainly should have been more creative in managing the game and changing things up. As fans of a well-known and hugely successful wizarding film franchise know, when the Death Eaters arrive you need to call for the Order of the Phoenix but sadly for Bristol fans they didn’t rise to the challenge and ultimately it spelled defeat. ‘We either win or we learn’ has become the latest addition to the Bears lexicon and unfortunately our two Academy products Andy Uren and Ioan Lloyd will be doing a little bit of extra homework this week. That’s not to say they played badly but just that they weren’t able to impose themselves and change the direction of the game. But let’s give them a bit of slack too. They were up against a half back pairing that delivered a masterclass in game management. Faf de Klerk’s tactical kicking and defensive awareness was impeccable and in AJ MacGinty Sale had kicking a metronome who was also able to provide a final bit of magic to grab victory at the death, with a pass so flat and filthy that the ball had to be rinsed in bleach at the end of the game. Lloyd did his best to get the Bristol backline moving despite being denied space and time and if nothing else, Andy Uren had plenty of box kicking practice. But ultimately they were literally worlds apart from their international opponents.

When it came down to it the Bears didn’t have a very extensive highlights reel save the signature pushover try but there were one or two moments that raised the pulses of the Bristol faithful. A few metres gained by Charles Piatau that offered hope but delivered disappointment, a John Afoa tap tackle on the wing that defied the laws of age and physics and one spiral kick from Ioan Lloyd that was such a thing of length, precision, and beauty that the MoD will no doubt use it to inform the development of their next generation of intercontinental ballistic missiles. And he won’t thank me for reminding him but there was one tackle by Faf de Klerk on Hughes that was so ferocious that it almost put big Nath’s wild man barnet back into plaits. But that was about it. You win or you learn, and you move on. A renewal of the Rifles cup awaits so let’s hope Bristol put Gloucester in the cross hairs and target a return to wining ways.

The teams lists are out and despite the absence of Luke Morahan, who I imagine is being eased back into the team gently after his injury lay off, and Semi, possibly because he is still on the warm down after all the metres he made against Bath, the line up is still very strong. Bringing Siale into 12 and Bedlow onto the bench will add extra beef as will the inclusion of Chapparo who will no doubt want to steak a claim in the front row. No point ‘pampa-ring’ this lad. He’s an All Black slayer and thrives on contact so throwing him in against the Sharks’ pack will be the perfect introduction to English rugby. Rumour also has it that Siva Nualago has spent the last few weeks having his rig reconditioned (copyright @CrootMatt) at the Marvel studios in California so no doubt will be desperate to avenge his omission from last week’s squad. And moving O’Conor to 13 is just down right filthy and gives him the chance to perfect his outside break even more.

Despite the demolition of Bath, Bristol clearly face a tougher challenge. Chock-full of snarling South Africans, sporting a World Cup winning scrum half of extraordinary dimensions and bringing a deserved reputation for direct, physical rugby, the Sharks will be as aggressive as them down the road were timid. Their defence has been pretty solid all season but at times they have lacked in attack, especially against what might considered the stronger teams. They were turned over by Wasps and Newcastle earlier in the season and made about as much impact in Europe as Theresa May but have picked up most of their points by grinding out wins against the slightly lesser opposition. However, the Sale team sheet still looks pretty strong and and I’m sure that rugby purists will look forward to the Southern Hemisphere-heavy back row battle with alacrity (anyone?). But don’t take it all from me. If you want hear more then click here to access the latest episode of Bears Beyond The Gate and listen to Lewis Hughes from the Shark Tank give you more of the low down.

Either way this still has the feel of a big clash under the lights and it will be fascinating to see how the contrasting styles of the two teams face off. Having scored against them off the bench last year, when he was still revising for his GCSEs, Ioan Lloyd will no doubt try to cast spells with his Welsh wizardry and I am also hoping that pump action Purdy pushes on from his punchy performance last week and gets his name on the scoresheet. Apart from that it looks like ‘system’ business as usual and hopefully Andy Uren will take confidence from his MOM performance and remind Faf de Klerk that there’s more than one hair bear in town.

Of course the one big difference in the Sale set up is that they no longer have Mr Marmite, Steve Diamond, in charge and in his place have appointed old boy and ex Saracens coach Alex Sanderson. He has joined with a great reputation for coaching a team full of internationals in an era when they were breaking the salary cap and appears to have been warmly ushered into his new post by all and sundry in the media although there is a suspicion that this is partly due to his penchant for a good ‘TV moment’. Don’t get me wrong, he clearly deserves respect for his achievements in a game that is both physically and mentality demanding but I do still remember his down with the kids defence of the Saracens salary cap breach with the ‘haters gonna, hate, hate ,hate’ quote followed by the line ‘I don’t mean to belittle the scenario, not at all, but that’s our mentality right’, which kind of means to me that their mentality was exactly to belittle the situation by declining to show any humility. Quotes like that set off the warning bells as to me it suggests a whiff of hubris – the trait of excessive pride or self confidence – and in a game where success revolves so much around team ethos rather than individual glory I do hope for his sake that this was a minor blip. That said, further grist to my mill was added when I came across a BT Sport Day in Life feature recorded at the height of his Saracens career and I don’t know, maybe he was playing to the cameras but something just didn’t ring true to me. It was a little bit too laddy, a bit too, ‘look at me I’ve fed the baby’ and to bring in a cultural reference from the 90s, a bit too Loaded. Sanderson seemed to think that referring to one of the players as Tongan John was hilarious. In the clubhouse maybe but not on camera. It had a bit of David Brent about it and not necessarily aligned with the current rugby management Zeitgeist. But if you want to judge for yourself click here and have a watch. Maybe I’m just jealous. I am as pleased as anyone when a young English coach gets success and yes, Sanderson has a personality that attracts new people to the game, but I am also aware of similar stars from the pitch who have transitioned nicely into a coaching role but have struggled with the step up to DoR. Think Paul Gustard, think George Skivington and and dare I say it… oh go on then, think Stuart Hooper. As we know only too well at Bristol, because we have one of the best in the world in Pat Lam, it takes time to build a winning culture. Pat failed at the Auckland Blues and then honed his ideas and philosophy at unfashionable Connacht before setting the Bears in the road to glory. But he is no mug. He knows how hard it is and he knows that there has to be clarity of vision with all the planets aligned before you even think about developing consistent success. There is a gravitas about Pat that commands respect. If you don’t believe me then click here to go to Episode 50 of Bears Beyond The Gate and hear it straight from the thoroughbred’s mouth himself.

So what has this all got to do with Friday’s game? Well, it sets the context. New cocky young Englishman takes over a successful yet somewhat one dimensional team forged in the personality of Steve Diamond and comes up against the man who has written the DoR manual and is supervising a squad high on confidence and low on fear who have just executed the best 60 minutes of attacking rugby seen this side of Timbuktu. Everything suggests that the Bears will pocket another win on home turf and if they do I hope that Alex Sanderson takes the chance to have a socially distanced chat with Pat to pick his phenomenal rugby brain but if Sale upset the odds and snatch a win then I also hope that Alex Sanderson will take the chance to have a socially distanced chat with Pat to pick his phenomenal rugby brain and not resort to hubristic outbursts that reference young female American singers for the benefit of BT Sport summarisers and the producers of ‘I’m a Celebrity get me out of here’

If Bristol’s clinical defeat of Exeter on their home patch signalled a shift in rugby’s tectonic plates up the M5, then their total demolition of Bath suggests that the epicentre is now much closer to BS3 than ever before. Bristol mmay not have much in common with the earthquake prone city of San Francisco apart from a famous bridge but there was no doubt that it was a Golden night at the Gate on Friday. Bristol dominated virtually all aspects of the match, although calling it a match is somewhat of an overstatement, as this implies a level of competition. For the majority of the first 60 minutes numerous Bristol players sliced open the Bath defence like a hot knife through butter but even this cliché doesn’t do justice to the reality of the situation. The divide between the two sides demands more hyperbole. A gold-plated sabre through low fat margarine is probably more accurate and where Bristol believed in themselves, their teammates and their system, the Bath players were looking around for someone else to do the work. Unfortunately, the barely believable statistic of 45 tackles missed and 865 metres conceded suggests that in fact, that someone was no-one. Bristol literally rampaged through no man’s land putting Bath players to the sword as they retreated to the trenches. Six, yes six Bath players didn’t even touch the ball! This is the fourth consecutive win for Bristol against their closest geographical rivals but in reality they were worlds apart. For the time being at least Bristol have rendered these once feared opponents to the ignominy of whipping boys.

Ironically the game started relatively well for Bath as they managed to get possession from the kick off forcing Bristol to scramble their defence and it soon had the feel of a 7s match albeit one where very quickly Bristol appeared to have at least 27 players on the pitch. But once Luke Morahan had touched down in the corner after a whiplash miss pass on the run from the outstandingly talented and unbelievably young Ioan Lloyd then the template was set and the unravelling of the Bath challenge began in earnest. If the win against Exeter was the most clinical performance seen under Pat Lam’s tenure, then the first 40 minutes of this game was the most swashbuckling as player after player took the opportunity to bank clips for their personal highlights package. There were so many dominant collisions, multiple carries and outrageous offloads that it was difficult to keep track. Nathan Hughes with his newly plaited yellow mane, stalked the pitch like a lion on the Serengeti looking for prey, the dynamic Bryan Byrne combined lineout accuracy with energy in both attack and defence and Chris Vui was so assured on his return to fitness that he even overshadowed Steve Luatua in the consistency and intelligence of the work that he did. Watching the forwards and backs combining in a fluid system of both aggression and finesse reminded me a bit of the Cruyff inspired total football of the 1970s. 

It seems churlish to pick out individuals after such a collective performance, but it was fantastic to see Andy Uren pick up the man of the match gong and there was a lot of competition. He is a very likeable chap – a local boy with a cheeky smile – and his post-match interview showed a respect and humility for his place in the Bears project that warmed the cockles. Clearly relegated to understudy this season with the rapid rise of Harry Randall the fact that he was able to slot in and perform so well at 9 is credit both to him and the coaching team. Of course, it helps when you are playing behind a rampaging pack but scrum half is such a pivotal position that you still have to make the right decisions at the right times and with Randall missing for several games this performance will give him and the fans huge amounts of confidence going forward. 

Whilst his man of the match accolade was fully deserved the performance of Piers O’Connor suggested that for once it should have been shared. To use a horse racing analogy, he isn’t just a thoroughbred, he is a top-level champion chaser combining style and rock solid substance in a most consistent manner. How he has not been picked for the England inside centre spot is beyond me because in terms of class, form and technical ability who in the country is better than him? Owen Farrell? Really? Perhaps Eddie Jones doesn’t like the way he casually dabs the ball down when he crosses the whitewash but surely it can’t be long before the selectors come calling. O’Conor epitomises the Bears project along with the likes of Jake Woolmore, Henry Purdy and Ioan Lloyd who all had strong games on Friday. Players with raw talent picked up from Championship clubs or the Academy and rapidly transformed into Premiership stalwarts. These are the players forming the bedrock of Bristol’s success, sprinkled with the stardust of Semi, Piatau, Luatua and the rest. 

But where Bristol were clear and clinical in their thinking and execution, Bath appeared to be muddled and sloppy in theirs. One definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result and clearly the voices in Rhys Priestland’s head kept telling him to ‘kick to Semi, ‘kick to Semi, ‘kick to Semi’ which he duly did. Whilst there may have been some method in the madness you would have thought he might have realised it was a doomed strategy the second time Semi popped it to Piston Purdy for another 40 yard break. If I was a Bath fan, I would have been apoplectic with rage. It seemed like quite a few senior Bath players downed tools fairly early on, resorting to cheap shots like scrum cap ripping and John Afoa head smashing in order to regain some control. Then again I suppose that is all you can do when you can’t get your hands on the oval. And seeing Jonathan Joseph’s kitten-like attempt at tackling Semi as he broke for his solo try FROM HIS OWN 22 and then laughing and smiling when Bristol scored their seventh must have felt like daggers in the Bath fans’ hearts. Moreover, Zach Mercer, a player that Bristol fans fear, increasingly looked like a man who was hoping that the A Team would swoop down into Ashton Gate and take him to Montpelier there and then. It’s easy to say that Stuart Hooper is to blame and clearly there seems to be a lack of clarity of vision and culture in Bath’s make up, but serious questions also have to be asked of the players on the pitch. 45 tackles missed! As Ugo Monye said on commentary, that is the sort of stat you see in the early rounds of the U18 Daily Mail cup, not in a top flight professional league.

It is testament to just how extraordinary the first half was that the 14-0 second half outcome could be deemed as somewhat of a failure. Whereas Priestland’s yellow card for a deliberate knock on in the first half yielded 21 points for Bristol, the Baylis one in the second provided zero but to be honest, once the seventh try had been scored and the system players started arriving from the bench, it is perhaps understandable that it was hard to maintain the brutal rhythm of the previous three quarters of the game. It was a real shame that the 50-point mark remained unbreached and it was the result of both a combination of sloppy play from Bristol and some Bath players scraping a small amount of pride from the bottom of their reputation barrels with an improved defensive effort. But that was from a very low base. I often wonder whether there is ‘anything lower than a nadir’ and I’m sure many Bath fans are hoping that there isn’t.

But you cannot complain with a record win in the Premiership and no tries conceded and, in many ways, playing Sale next is probably the best thing that could happen as it will refocus minds very quickly with the knowledge that a much tougher and more South African weighted foe awaits. There is no way that the Du Preez brothers will roll over and have their tummies tickled like the Bath players did and it is important to remember the old adages that you are only as good as your next game and that you must always believe that your best is still in front of you until it really isn’t. Knowing the way that the club operates now I’m sure that those messages will be rammed home in training all through the week.

Lot of history with this club and more recently for them, most of it has been horrible. Bath Rugby are the classic professional era ‘flatterer to deceive’, akin to a smart youngs financial advisor with shiny shoes and an expensive suit who sells high but delivers low and then stops answering your calls. Undoubted thoroughbreds of the amateur era they have regressed to being mid-table workhorses in professional times, averaging only fifth in the 22 years of the Premiership albeit punctuated with a short bursts of orgasmic glory with a couple of European cups and a League title in the early 2000s. But this is 2021 and they have won nothing for thirteen years. A poor return from a club that bagged six titles and ten domestic cups before English rugby took its deep dive into professionalism. I suppose you could say that one of their greatest achievements has been not getting relegated.

So, despite a loyal fanbase, a series of top coaches and a regular smattering of international players what is the problem with Bath? Undoubtedly the answer is complex but the perennial ‘redevelopment of the Rec’ issue has got to be top of the agenda and although the Bruce Craig takeover delivered a much improved training facility and playing budget, the fact that they remain impotent when it comes to developing a stadium to be proud of is a physical and psychological scar that they seem incapable of shaking off.

And to that extent I have some sympathy. For a city that has benefitted hugely from the club over the years, with match day fans and their families fans flocking into the centre to buy their pre match champagne and caviar, it appears to be in no rush to reward Bath Rugby for the positive economic and social impact that is has had conveniently forgetting that if the ‘city’ of Bath didn’t have rugby, what else would it really have at the moment? Only being famous as an exercise park for geriatric foreign tourists, having a twee Christmas market and building an overpriced sauna in the centre of town on the back of its Roman heritage doesn’t really cut the metropolitan mustard of the 21st century. And with COVID putting pay to all that, rugby is about the only thing happening in the place. But, there are certain residents in Bath, particularly those residing in houses overlooking the Rec, who are so myopic in their view about the benefits that sports other than quoits, croquet and grouse shooting can bring to a locale, that they have taken NIMBY-ISM to an Olympic level by blocking plans for Rec development at every turn. And when you think that the city is surrounded by Jacob Rees-Mogg’s North East Somerset constituency, Bath Rugby fans must sometimes feel that they are subject to some sort of political siege led by insane medieval barons. Despite Bristol’s patchy record in getting things done, Bath fans must look at what’s happened in BS3 over the last few years and weep.

And to cap it all their preparation for their big local derby has been disrupted by a COVID testing cock up of monumental proportions. I’m sure many rugby fans were interested to learn from this whole sorry debacle that a weirdly named company called Randox has been administering the testing for Premier Rugby but of course no doubt heartened to read that ‘as a result of routine risk analysis, Randox discovered that in an isolated incident operators failed to follow the established and robust procedures we have in place for Covid-19 testing,” said a spokesperson for the company. “We apologise for any inconvenience caused and have introduced innovative robotic systems to ensure this type of human error cannot reoccur.” Really. Well thank the Lord on high. You’ve said sorry and brought the terminators in. Why should we worry anymore. The only thing that would make this story more unpalatable, if that is at all possible, is to discover that the CEO of ‘Randox’ is in fact Matt Hancock’s second cousin twice removed who used to run a bubble bath import and export business from his garage in Penge and that the tendering and due diligence process needed to get government approval to flog this service was a handwritten proposal scrawled on the back of a proverbial fag packet. I imagine that the only positive thing that came out of this whole sorry affair was that it made Bath fans momentarily forget that the last time they turned out in the Premiership they shipped 50 points to Wasps and that Bristol beat Exeter the next day with such an impressive display of disciplined, intense and clinical rugby that it made Bears fans squeak with joy. Nope, the omens aren’t good for the Baaarf but of course this is sport and that means that sometimes the impossible can become possible.

So bearing in mind the famous Rumsfeldian ‘ known knowns’, ‘known unknowns’ and those pesky ‘unknown unknowns’ that must always be taken into account when predicting the outcome of a sporting contest, what can we expect on Friday? Well first, Bears will be disappointed not to get another bonus point win given that they have only lost Ben Earl from the pack whereas Bath’s will be shorn of Beno Obano, Will Stuart and Sam UnderHill and given that Bath’s set piece attacking threat has been minimal this season and will be even more impotent with the absence of Watson and Redpath and their defence somewhat suspect, it is fairly safe to assume that trying to keep the ball away from our rampant running roster of Semi, Siva, Charles and the rest may result in a barrage of box kicks from Ben Spencer. But to do this effectively they will need to get on the front foot and squeeze our forwards. Which takes us back to the pack being shorn of their internationals. And, given the way that Exeter were schooled by us at Sandy park with an awesome display of controlled aggression they are going to have their work cut out. However, the glimmer of hope for Bath is the omission of Randall from the Bears’ line up with Uren filling the breach and Llloyd starting at 10. Will Andy be able to maintain that zip and intensity that Harry has given us in recent games and has the ridiculously talented but factually young and inexperienced Welsh Wonkderkind got the nous and cojones to manage a game from the start? It feels treacherous even to cast aspersions on him but pressure is a funny thing and if Bath manage to exert it on him in some way then who knows? I imagine Zach Mercer will be visualising rib shots in his sleep every night as the game approaches.

Either way, it is great to have some Premiership rugby to talk about and despite the odds being firmly in Bristol’s favour lets hope that we avoid a Foinavon and cement our position at the top of the tree come the weekend!

Exeter Chiefs 7 – Bristol Bears 20

In a dismal week for the country the only ray of light after Boris’s screeching hand break turn was the fact that the top two Premiership rugby teams in the land would be facing off against each other in a modern day Clash of the Titans as elite sport appeared to be pretty much the only thing that survived the culling of Chris Witty and his band of scientific raiders. For Bears fans it also stirred pleasurable memories of the ‘Sandy Park Special’ last season which in many ways marked the start of the our march to top table feasting. I still chuckle at the referee’s comment after the final try that he could see the ball but didn’t know how it had got there despite the 15 man Bristol juggernaut ram raiding the Exeter try line.

Excitement continued to grow throughout the week as the teams were announced, with Bristol naming a 23 so filthy that most fans had to take a shower immediately after reading it. Exeter’s wasn’t too shabby either with most of their international players included bar Stuart Hogg who was probably having to give his artificial lid another week off to recover from the Autumn Nations Cup. It then reached near orgasmic levels after Barf got turned over by Wasps on their cabbage patch and Glaws succumbed to a dose of yet more Geordie filthery, confirming without doubt who the Mummy and Daddy of south west rugby truly were, the only question left being which one would be wearing the trousers at 6.30pm on Saturday evening.

So, it was all set up nicely and while the man in the middle last week was the choirboy-esque Christophe Ridley, this time we had the gnarly Karl Dickson, the sort of fella whose pint you avoid spilling on a night out in a pub. A what, I hear you shout?

With match ups all over the pitch, a pre match interview with Joycey where he appeared to be doing vertical one armed press ups on the post and a ‘we only win or we learn’ soundbite from Pat ringing in our ears it was inevitable that the first 20 minutes of Bristol’s ‘test against the best’, as BT Sports Department of rhyming had devised for their commentators, was a bit of a let down and akin to an arm wrestle competition where no-one actually puts their elbow on the table. Chief miscreants were Jake Woolmore and Harry Williams who were matched in both excessive beardry as well as an apparent inability to pack down properly, so were soon caught in the cross hairs of an increasingly irritated Karl Dickson. Harry Williams is a funny chap. He’s like a human mosaic on steroids and in another life could be a performance artist on Las Ramblas in Barcelona rather than a Games of Thrones extra from Cullompton. Anyway, like a frustrated secondary school teacher who can’t get his class to settle, Dickson went for the risky nuclear option and announced that if they couldn’t scrummage properly then he would find two people that could. Several penalties and numerous resets later he did just that and sent the naughty boys to the stands. The look of bemusement on their faces was a picture. ‘What, you really meant that?’ It was a lesson for all teachers across the land. If you threaten then you’ve got to go through with it or risk being ineffective for life. Make Karl Dickson Secretary of State for Education.They need someone like him..

It was a compelling, rather than exciting rest of the first half and amidst the grunt there were chinks of serious light, mainly emanating from Harry Randall who was a live wire throughout and even had the temerity to score a try from a trademark rolling maul, much to the irritation of ‘double Y’ Bryan Byrne who had no doubt assumed it was his job. Ben Earl was causing mischief at the breakdown, Nathan Hughes was making a play for being the UK’s sole Greco-Roman wrestling representative at this year’s Olympics and Siva Nualago was bringing his army experience to the party by inventing the more rapid yet highly risky ‘blitzkrieg’ defence. That said, the one crumb of comfort that came from Exeter’s equalising try was that Siva didn’t get carded for a deliberate knock on and was withdrawn early in the second half to be replaced by someone from the opposite end of the human spectrum in Ioan Lloyd, albeit no less effective. it reminded the watching viewers that another thing that Bristol have shown this year is that rugby players should come in all shapes and sizes.

If we thought the first half was brutal, then the second took it to another level. Harry Randall continued his ascent up Eddie Jones’s shopping list and the Bristol front row settled down with the appearance of Yann Thomas who took over from big Jake with assured relish. Clearly the biggest highlight of the half was the bagelling of Exeter, a phrase that connoisseurs of the French language and middle class delis in Southville will know means that they got a big fat zero. Interestingly they also got a big fat zero in the second half the last time we were at Sandy Park with sadly the only difference being that there weren’t any Chiefs’ fans there to have to experience it live. There was also a bit of naughty language from Kyle Sinckler after Luke Cowan-Dickie had tried to chop his legs off below his knees with his head but luckily Steven Luatua was on hand like a friendly Uncle to calm him down. You could tell he was angry as he almost talked back to Mr Dickson who no doubt would have felt compelled to put him in detention for at least 6 months. As the half wore on there was this strange sense of calm that descended over the Bears as it became apparent that from about 70 mins in we were going to win. Against the European Champions. At Sandy Park. Again. The cherry on the collective cake was the coup de grace from Semi on the crash ball that finally put the Chiefs out of their misery from what can only be described as a ‘deliciously filthy’ offload from Pier O’Connor.

And so there it was. A victory that will no doubt send tremors around the rest of the Premiership. It’s hard to argue that Bristol don’t deserve their place at the top table and the more they feast, the hungrier they will get. This was a victory born out of collective endeavour but punctuated by individual brilliance and despite the presence of international superstars like Semi, Charles and Sinckler, it was also the engine room work done by the unheralded heroes like Joycey, big Dave Attwood, Bryan Byrne and the imperious Piers O’Connor that got us over the line. And then if that wasn’t filthy enough the two young Jedis, Randall and Lloyd, combined to execute such a ridiculous blindside move involving a floated pass, a catch on the- run, a double grubber and a chase that most Bears fans at home had to have CPR administered by their partners. Exeter will be hurting but perhaps deep down they will be pleased that they have real competitors for the SW crown and it will drive them on

Bristol Bears 29 – Newcastle Falcons 17

The Falcons swooped into town with a four-zip win record albeit one of them thanks to COVID (a phrase that you don’t hear very often). However, any team coached by Dean Richards will come prepared with a number of light and dark arts so when we also found out that six of the front row were isolating and it was time to throw in the kids we knew it might be a tough assignment. The return of CP and the Wizard of Oz softened the blow somewhat, but to be honest neither were going to be much use against a growling Geordie pack fronted by Mark Wilson, Cumbrian granite in human form, so clearly our game plan would be to avoid a forward arm wrestle at all costs.

The man in the middle, Christophe Ridley, looks more like a senior prefect that has been overpromoted than a top-level referee and his first contribution was to ignore the fact that the Falcons number 5 was about 10 yards in front of Toby Flood on kick off. But hey, why waste time on easy to spot infringements when you have scrum collapses and breakdowns to police. We could add throwing straight at the lineout, feeding the scrum and breaking the offside line to the list too. It seems to me that if you want to establish authority then ping the easy things early so the players know you are onto them. Otherwise, they’ll be flouting the rules like a career criminal on day release.

Anyway, Bristol dropped the ball as usual and the Falcons had a couple of ineffective phases before Luke Arscott delivered a late Christmas present by passing the ball to Callum Sheedy who showed a nice turn of pace before delivering the try to Siva Nualago . He had so much gas that it rearranged the lettering on the back of his shirt.

After that, the newly christened Nuagalo nearly scored again from a forward pass by Semi and stupidly I assumed that we were in for a rout. Oh, how I chuckled on my sofa. Welcome back to the big time boys. Well, chuckling quickly turned into choking as apart from Piatau’s first try in over a year from a one-handed pick up that should have come with a government health warning it was so filthy, we spent most of the rest of the first half trying to repel wave after wave of Geordie marauders. So much for avoiding the arm wrestle.

Despite some heroic defence, which to be fair has become an integral part of the Bears’ evolving project, Mark Wilson finally went over from an old school tap and go after Attwood was carded for driving so early on a Falcons lineout that he ended up with one of their players sitting on his shoulders. Before that Newcastle had also scored a decent phase try when their young centre found a gap in Semi’s beard and bundled through an uncharacteristically weak tackle from Piers O’Connor. Apart from the tries the other main highlight of the half for the Bears was the exuberant performance of George Kloska who recovered from an early missed lineout throw to put himself around with alacrity, which I still remember from my school days as meaning ‘eager readiness’. Big Steve Luatua also showed his class despite the deceptive air of looking completely knackered from about 5 minutes in.

So even though it felt like we had been bullied for most of the half, the Bristol players must have been fairly relieved as they trotted to the changing room 14-10 up only to be reminded that Pat was probably penning a half time chat that was less get on the bus and more give your shirt to an 18 year old.

As has been the way in many games Pat’s reminder to the team that the system is the solution bore some early luscious fruit with the increasingly dynamic and hirsute Nathan Hughes dabbing down after a gloriously deft and perfectly executed lineout move. Expecting a catch and drive the Falcons where deliciously wrong footed by Joycey who found a pass to big Steve off the top that defied the laws of time and space so he could pop it to big Nath who gobbled up the try line with the same enthusiasm that he showed last year when hopping across the traffic outside Welford Road to help himself to a donner kebab with extra chilli sauce. The pleasure that he currently appears to be getting out of playing rugby is a joy to behold and long may it be matched with the sprouting of his cranial and facial hair.

It’s credit to Falcons that we didn’t run away with the game even when the aforementioned Kloska rounded off a dream man of the match performance with his debut try from a standard rolling maul mid-way through the half. His all-round display was capped nicely with one of the humbler post match interviews ever recorded. Kyle Sinckler would also be disappointed to not get a mention in dispatches as his second half grunt shored up the scrum and eventually wore the Geordies down. That’s no disrespect to Jake Armstrong who clearly only had a half in him before he needed to be resuscitated but he did a fine job and that’s what a squads’s about after all.

So, yet another bonus point win and with Exeter getting ‘out Exetered’ by Wasps we sit proudly in second place on 20 points with a tasty trip to Devon next on the agenda. We’ll need the self-isolators back into the fold if we are to produce another Sandy Park special, but I have a feeling that if we defend for our lives again, start with Harry Randall and get SAS (Semi and Siva) into the game we could come away with another victory and let’s face it, who really fancy playing us at the moment?