Unfamiliar Bristol Bring up the Half (Clif)Ton

The pre-season matches got underway with an unfamiliar Bristol side beating a game Clifton 50 to 3. Indeed, so unfamiliar were the team to the majority of spectators that much of the sizable crowd were reduced to asking “who’s that blonde guy?”. Sadly, as the majority of the backs appeared to be both blonde and to have borrowed Craig Short’s fake tan, this simply led to a great deal of speculative misidentification. This was not confined to the crowd, with the Clifton announcer, even aided by the local press, hard put to name the Bristol scorers.

The platform was set by the Bristol pack who were collectively dominant over their lower league opponents, particularly in the set piece. The greater bulk and fitness of much of the Bristol squad was, ultimately, decisive. The opening score, which was rather delayed in coming, was scored by Neil Clark from a good forwards move. For some time this proved to be the only scoring action as the Bristol side failed to gel effectively and the referee called anything flat as forward and gave a number of knock-ons which clearly weren’t. Credit also to Clifton who competed well and had a couple of chances. Finally, the skill and pace of Vaughan Going opened up the scrambling defence to give Bristol a 10 – 0 lead after half an hour played.

Clifton narrowed the gap with what proved to be their only score as Tristan Roberts kicked a penalty. Going, though, rapidly struck back for a fine try which Danny Gray converted. The score at half time was 17 – 3. Early in the second half two tries were scored, I couldn’t see at all who they were, but I’m told they were by Redford Pennycook and Alex Clarke (just to confuse the announcer). Only the first was converted by Gray, who then went on to create the try of the game with a superbly weighted cross-field kick that was well collected by debutant Luke Arscott at pace. Arscott went in behind the posts for Gray to make the simple conversion, taking the score to 36 - 3. Arscott looked to be fast, skilful and much larger than when I saw him with Plymouth .

The Bristol replacements were now brought on and the son of former captain Derek Eves, Luke, promptly scored an excellent try with a swerve and sidestep to put the ball down under the posts with the tired Clifton defenders flailing behind. The conversion duly followed to make it 43 – 3. His style of running is oddly reminiscent of his father’s, although Eves senior would have been more likely to score from shorter range diving under the tacklers. There was still time for the referee to award an inexplicable penalty try for replacement Gareth Griffiths to convert and bring up the half-century of points

This is the sort of game Bristol would be expected to win comfortably and they certainly fulfilled this expectation. Many of those on display will be fortunate to figure in the upcoming league campaign. However, several did themselves no harm of playing some part in the upcoming fixtures. The front five were very solid, the wings looked fast and strong, and Vaughan Going was an experienced and reassuring presence at full-back. It’s likely that this side was essentially a 3 rd team, with those to face Cardiff and, perhaps Coventry , being the 1 st XV, but I am sure some of this side will be there for the 2 nd team fixtures with Neath and Ebbw Vale.