Review of the Worcester match 30/11/03

the full monty
By David Hibell
December 2 2003

Questions were always going to be asked of the Bristol defence today with the visit of undefeated league leaders Worcester Warriors, but the young Shoguns side can say that they answered these questions and answered them well.

This was an unusual game in that the North stand seemed to be the one with most people in, a lot of people cramming themselves in that end in an effort to keep dry, including a noisy band of Worcester supporters.

The players agreed after that the Bristol support today was the best they had seen & they rewarded the support with the best defensive performance of the season bar none.

Worcester had scored six tries from the catch and drive, previously Bristol’s Achilles heel, in their last match and with the weather suiting ball up the jumper rugby it looked like being a long afternoon.

The wet ball meant that handling was never going to be easy and despite some very confident play from the Worcester backs both teams struggled to get anything going out wide.

Despite this the only try of the game, which came four minutes in, was run from deep with James Brown, the Worcester fly half, slipping a tackle & making a break before shipping the ball on to Wes Davies who fed outside centre Tommy Hayes who managed to squeeze in to score. Hayes duly converted the try and Bristol were looking down the barrel.

Bristol had two penalty chances to score in the first half, both from long range and although Danny Gray made good contact with the first one it fell short, the second wasn't as clean a strike as the first and although it was five yards or so closer also fell short. But the best scoring opportunity the young Shoguns had was a break away from Sean Marsden who raced upfield, cut back to beat the full back and then tripped before he was able to offload the ball to the supporting runners.

Worcester also had a penalty goal attempt which fell short, and suffered set backs with flanker Neil Mason being sin binned for stamping and an injury to scrum half Warner Swanepoel forcing him to be replaced by Matt Powell.

Bristol’s defence, the first try aside, was keeping Worcester out time and again, with the whole team defending heroically and you were left wondering how long they could last before Worcester broke through.

The start of the second half saw Worcester’s first real attempt to use the driving maul but Bristol managed to keep it out. Worcester had a succession of scrums, lineouts and penalties in the Bristol 22 but each time the defence was up to the task.

Bristol did not manage to get into the Worcester half until the 15th minute of the half, though when they did they set up a promising attack, Danny put a cross field kick through to the left wing for Marsden to run onto, it was fielded by Worcester with two men covering but Bristol were penalised when applying pressure and the chance was gone.

There was a sense that the tide may have turned and that perhaps this was to be Bristol’s day, and you felt if they could put a move together and score a try that the game would take on a completely different complexion, but problems at the set piece, where Craig Gillies in particular had an excellent game for Worcester, and handling errors when Bristol had decent possession meant that this was short lived.

Richard Hill made four changes to the pack on 26 minutes, with Craig McGrath getting his first appearance at the Memorial Ground replacing Saul Nelson. Alex Clarke replaced Jason Hobson who had been carrying a shoulder injury sustained in the game with Hilts switching to the opposite side of the scrum, Richard Hunt came on for Ollie Hodge and the improving Ben Gerry replaced Chris Morgan.

Worcester perhaps sensing the changes may upset the balance in defence upped the pressure and drove on right upto the Bristol line but again the Shoguns somehow kept them out. It was testament to the quality of the defence that when Worcester were awarded a penalty in the 22 in the 35th minute that they elected to kick it rather than go for another scrum or catch and drive at the line out.

We entered the last five minutes knowing that any score from Worcester would deny Bristol the bonus point and as the game moved into entered into injury Bristol still refused to yield to the relentless pressure Worcester were applying.

Seven long minutes of injury time later and the ref finally called time on a good old-fashioned game of rugby played with heart and determination.

Bristol showed that they had come a long way from the group of players they were at the start of the season to a team with a well-organised defence.