Brian Byrne, the BristolBristol, took advantage of the Bears’ advantage as a short man to dominate Bath with two tries in three minutes before the break.
| Bristol (34) 48 |
| Try it on: Morahan, Puytau, Uren, Byrne 2, Radradra, attempted penalty kick by arrestees : Lloyd 4 pen: Lloyd |
| Bathtub (3) 3 |
| Pen: Priestland |
Premiership leaders Bristol scored seven tries to set a new record for wins in this traditional derby.
The game was decided in the first half, with the home side scoring five tries, Bath losing three players through injury and Rhys Priestland receiving a yellow card.
Luke Morahan, Charles Piutau and Andy Uren each passed, while Brian Byrne scored two tries in three minutes against 14 men.
A penalty kick and a penalty shot gave the home team the complete victory.
Bani’s preparations for a return to the Premier League have undoubtedly been hampered by the fact that the training ground was erroneously closed last week following the erroneous results of the Covid 19 tests. Mentally and physically they seemed to be out of control as Bristol showed no mercy with a ruthless performance.
Bath can also point out that their injuries played a big part in the biggest win over Bristol in the 132-year history of the game, a 44-6 victory at Memorial Stadium in 1980.
But the visitors had already conceded two tries in the first seven minutes before a head-on collision cost the two locks, Josh McNally and Elliot Stoke, their services.
Both attackers were unhappy with the extent of the head injury they sustained in place of Mike Williams and Lions No8 Taulupe Faletau, who were forced to take an unexpectedly long break before their next Six Nations opener against Ireland on Sunday.
Referee Wayne Barnes once again had his hands full: He handed out two yellow cards and missed a penalty try.
After losing to Ruaridh McConnochie with just over 15 minutes to go, the Bears’ scrum halfback Hours also had a great individual game.
The situation worsened when referee Wayne Barnes ruled that Priestland had deliberately kicked Wales – and Byrne took advantage of the extras to score twice in a row and get a bonus point for four tries.
With a 34-3 lead, Bristol took it easy in the second half. The Bath players recovered in pleasing fashion and restricted the hosts to just two points, despite a second yellow card for the blue-bloods – this time for flanker Josh Bayliss.
The Radradra midfielder delivered a cross before Barnes missed a penalty kick after thanking Will Capon on the TV screen for a shot on goal.
The leader of Bristol, Pat Lam:
He was our best attacking half in rugby. There were so many ways to attack. He didn’t just run away. We dominated up front and got beat too. They can run laps on command, and we all did.
We still have a long way to go. All we do is focus on our journey, and our journey is to get better, and if we do that, the rest will take care of itself.
Once we start looking at the standings and worrying about the other teams, they’re going to catch up to us. It is an excellent result and the first half was very entertaining. But that’s just one of the results. We will learn from this and move on to next week’s sale.
Lifeguard Stuart Hooper:
We have a job. There’s no point in hiding behind it. We have great individual players, but we don’t play as a team. People from all walks of life need to watch their game.
We had all the changes and decisions in this game, but we still should have been much better than we were.
Unpleasantness is one thing. We reacted differently. Whoever is on the ground, we expect more. We didn’t count on the other person to do the right thing at the right time.
Bristol: Piutau; Morahan, Radradra, O’Conor, Purdy; Lloyd, Uren; Woolmore, Byrne, Afoa, Attwood, Vui, Luatua (Capt.), Thomas, Hughes.
Substitutions: Capon, Thomas, Armstrong, Holmes, Heenan, Kessel, Sheedy, Leiuah.
Bathtub: De Glanville; McConnochie, Joseph, Matavesi, Hamer-Webb; Priestland, Spencer; Schuman, Dunn, Judge, McNally (captain), Stoke, Bayliss, Reed, Mercer.
Substitutions: Walker, Bhatti, Thomas, Williams, Faletau, Chudley, Redpath, Kokanasiga.
Shin-bin: Priest (32), Bayliss (54).
Referee: Wayne Barnes.
