Bristol sink Bath

victory
By David Hibell
September 5 2005

At last the wait is over & Bristol are back playing rugby, & in the Premiership as well. The Sky cameras were there to see Bristol maintain their their record this millenia of being unbeaten at home v Bath. I haven't looked at the papers yet but I hope to see the pundits eating lots of humble pie.

I must confess that I was in a pessimistic mood going to this match, I was mentally preparing to see Bristol on the end of a cricket score, whilst hoping we would do enough to get a bonus point.

those expectations changed gradually during the match. Everyone had been saying that the Bath pack was the biggest/ best in the league and that Bristols' was lightweight and that we were going to struggle in the tight.

With ten minutes to go Bristol were seven points behind and I was hoping that we would stay within seven to get that point. And stay within seven we did, outscoring them in the last quarter to lead by three.

For the opening minutes of the game we were competing well there, maintaining parity, and altough one team out there looked like premiership new boys that were not familiar with each other it certainly wasn't Bristol. The number of handling errors in the Bath back line will have John Connoly scratching his head, here was an expensive machine not firing and in need of a service. Crueller people would say that maybe the Bath backs were unfamiliar with the funny squashed oval shaped object that the forwards produced for them but these are backs that have played internationals, or are being tipped to in the case of Andrew Higgins, who was always highly thought of when he played for Bristol.

In contrast the Bristol backs seemed at ease with the ball and were passing it from flank to flank. The Bath defence seemed quite comfortable and well organised so it looked from the off like it was going to be a low scoring game.

The two tries that were scored were both well executed individual efforts, Frikke Welsh running almost the length of the pitch without having a hand laid on him thanks to his line of attack, whereas Lee Robinson was more like a pinball bouncing the tacklers off him before deceiving the last man to touch down under the posts.

In the end the kickers were the difference on the score board, Bath missing four attempts despite having two regular kickers on the pitch, Bristol's reliable Jason Strange missing none of his.

To these eyes Bath suffered from a negative game plan, they never really went looking for the try line, Malone's drop goal in the first half off of first phase possession being a case in point. The most expansive they got was when Bristol were reduced to fourteen men, with Mark Denney sin binned for hands in a ruck after a team warning had been issued, but the score for the thirteen minutes he was off the pitch stayed at 0-0.

Bristol will have much to work on but can gain confidence from a job well done.