Lake Town Destroyed, But Dragon Eventually Slain

Bristol maintained their season’s unbeaten home record at the Memorial Ground last night, but they made dreadfully hard work of defeating the abrasive Dragons.

Bristol were dominant for much of the first half with the pack well on top. The Dragons backline looked to be quite sharp, but, as is so often the case, their opportunities were limited by lack of possession. The visitors picked up in the second half, scoring an exceptional try and maintaining a threat throughout the half, but the Bristol defence was, aside from the one lapse, able to maintain its early season form.

Early in the game Aled Brew foolishly palmed a kick that was heading into touch close to the right corner over the Dragons' dead-ball line. Intense pressure from the ensuing five-metre scrum and the subsequent powerful drive from Dan Ward-Smith caused the Dragons to go offside. Jason Strange surprisingly hooked the penalty past the left post. Craig Morgan forced Dragons well back into their own half with a powerful kick and Bristol stole the lineout, where they were sound all evening, but were penalised for holding (as happened far too frequently).

Ceri Sweeney was just wide from perhaps 50 metres when Mark Regan played a ball from in front of Craig Morgan’s poorly executed kick/knock-on. Bristol then established a period of territorial command and went through the phases well. Marko Stonojevic had a good run and a chip near the Dragons line but the Welsh team were solid in defence.

However, when Brew obstructed Stanojevic as he followed up another kick, Bristol elected to go for the corner and the generally excellent Ward-Smith went over from the lineout to make it 5 – 0 with just over half an hour played. Strange, although inaccurate with his conversion attempt, soon added a penalty after Brew tackled Shaun Perry from an astoundingly off-side position and was sent to the sin-bin. Dragons were able to hold out for the remainder of the half to leave the score 8 – 0 at half time.

Bristol began the second period assertively, with Perry replaced, after subjugating his opposite number, by Brian O’Riordan. Stanojevic and Sam Cox made good breaks, but the Dragons began to negate Bristol's earlier forward strength. Ceri Sweeney's precise kicking gave them the opportunity to establish some territorial possession of their own.

Dragons were able to capitalise on this good work with a fine try from Brew, who ran an excellent line from the blind-side wing, fixed Morgan with a smart sidestep and went over by the posts. Sweeney added the simple conversion to narrow the gap to just one point; 8 – 7 after 55 minutes play.

Bristol were now under some pressure, with the Dragons’ centres able to make decent runs into the defence. Bristol dug deep and launched a series of forward assaults from one of which Nathan Budgett was held out just short. Dragons, though, had gone offside and Strange was able to land his second successful kick of the night to put Bristol 11 – 7 up. There were still an anxious ten minutes to play and Bristol struggled at the scrum and gave away several penalties. Dragons made frantic efforts to score what might have proved the decisive try but Bristol's defence, although under pressure, was able to hold out until finally able to kick to touch to bring the game to a halt.

The main thing about this game was that we won it and went top of the pool. Much of the play from both sides was pretty uninspired stuff and it was worrying to see how we started to struggle at the scrum in the second half. Touch kicking, again, was of a low standard. On the plus side, the defence was generally assured and some of the handling was of a very high standard. Dan Ward-Smith performed exceptionally and might consider himself unlucky not to have been in the frame for the England squad. Speaking of which, Shaun Perry gave an entertaining cameo and showed Cooper how to run a game. Overall then a slightly worrying start to a month or so of Friday night rugby and we will have to be much sharper against Newcastle to maintain our start to the season.