Victory snatched from the Bears' paws

It felt like a rare occurrence to plan a match day at StoneX around the once-usual routine of a 3pm kick-off on a Saturday, after recent experiences of Sunday matches and even a chilly 8pm Saturday start against Lyon a couple of weeks back – but such are the demands of TV broadcasters these days, with European fixtures especially prone to being switched outside the traditional times. At least, as I’ve mused many times on the way to games over the past eighteen months or so, we were actually getting to a ground to see live rugby, a privilege denied to spectators for so long in the not  too  distant past.

Bristol, who have had various suffixes over the years but they’re currently Bears, are a club of I’m fond of, not because of their brand of rugby – attractive as that has often been in recent years – or even having Brizzle fans in my family, but because their fans are some of the best you can encounter anywhere the game is played - knowledgeable, welcoming and always friendly - and Ashton Gate is one of the few stadia that works well for both football, its original purpose, and for rugby.

Sarries’ squad as always at Six Nations time, was stretched a bit with a fair number of second-stringers in the squad, including two players with Sarries on short-term contracts, Tom Ellis and Francois Hougaard, set to make their debut from the bench.

Everyone was delighted to see the havoc-wreaking Rotimi Segun in the starting XV for the first time this season, and returning to the squad was, we were pleased to see, the young giant that is Cameron Boon.

Very deservedly, however, the centre of attention for the day was Jackson Wray, making his 300^th appearance in the black and red – never recognised at senior international level (save for that ill-fated sojourn with the Barbarians a few years back), at least everyone around Sarries recognises his worth to us over the years and his key role in our club’s successes over the past decade: I personally hope to see Jackson marking a special season with some silverware.   

Bristol’s squad, not quite as badly affected as Sarries by international calls, contained a fair amount of quality in the likes of Radrada, Randall and Thacker.

In marginally milder weather than we’d seen of late – a bit damp, and cold but not bitingly so – the match got underway and it was Sarries who made the faster start, looking ready to do a good day’s work with Segun showing he meant business after a long absence, then Taylor and Lewington gave the crowd some early excitement.

It was, however, first blood to the Bears when on 11 minutes a McGinty penalty put them 0-3 ahead, and things could have been even worse for Sarries when Radrada powered over for what looked like 0-8, only to be denied by the thankfully alert TMO spotting a forward pass in the phase of play leading up to the “try”.

Sarries were working hard and built up a phase of pressure close to the Bristol line before an infringement ended the opportunity.

Bristol were not, though,  looking a like a side languishing at the foot of the table as they continued to play with confidence and as the first half wore on looked the better side although contributing to this was Sarries looking disjointed, understandably perhaps with a much-changed squad for this match.

The confidence in Bristol’s performance so far was evinced by a lovely piece of play creating a clear space to the line for Lane, who was stopped only by the alertness of Taylor tracking back to prevent a score.

The half was drawing to a close with Sarries never really threatening and as the interval approached Bristol enjoyed a sustained period of pressure aided by a flurry of penalties, culminating in Thacker driving over the line on 38 minutes. The conversion was missed and the half ended with a distinctly out of sorts Sarries with some work to do at 0-8.

The hope at half time was that a bit of a talking-to might stir Sarries into life.

My nephew, raised just outside Bristol but supporting Sarries today (on the basis that I’d treated him to a ticket and you should never bite the hand that feeds), pointed out that if you came to this game with no knowledge of Premiership Rugby you’d be hard put to tell which side was at the top and bottom of the table; a trifle harsh but fair nonetheless.

Sarries had as I said earlier looked disjointed with set pieces not working well and the very early stages aside had posed no real threat.

As with the first half, Sarries began the second act in businessike fashion and an early chance was missed when some good interplay ended with the ball being spilled.

Again as with the first half, though, Bristol took the first points to take the score to 0-11 with 50 minutes gone when Williams slotted over a penalty.

2 minutes later, Goode at last got Sarries on the scoreboard for 3-11, and the score didn’t look beyond Sarries – IF they could raise the tempo a bit, pose more of a threat to the Bears’ line and improve the set pieces (the line out was woeful with by my count four in succession being lost).

The visitors, however, responded with a penalty from Williams 4 minutes later to restore Bristol’s 11-point cushion.  

Moving toward the last twenty minutes, there’s something of a momentum shift following a massive carry from Billy, and Sarries start to stir, culminating just on the hour with Dan going over after a Sarries penalty set up a maul to rumble forward put one of our rapidly rising stars across the line and onto the scoreboard, Goode adding the extras to take Sarries to within a score and set up a potentially exciting last quarter at 10-14….that’s if the shredded nerves of the StoneX faithful could take another exciting finish….

We were now into the last 10 minutes as Bristol picked up their game again, with several penalties giving them opportunity to pressure the Sarries line, probing and moving the ball one side to the other before Ibitoye found space to dummy his way over. Thankfully the conversion was unsuccessful although the score of 10-19 with 8 minutes left was testing even Sarries’ powers of recovery.

Tizard did his best in a bustling run, and then a promising Segun break was stopped – illegally.

Into the last 5 minutes and we're beginning to lose hope of a comeback, that is until Pifeleti and Goode set up Segun to make a comeback of his own – to the try-scoring ranks – and show that he’d lost none of his sharpness and balance when he dotted down to take the score, albeit with the slight disappointment of a missed conversion, to 15-19 with 3 minutes left…it would take another try to snatch this…..and sure enough, it came when, as the clock was hitting 80 minutes, Goode elected to kick a Sarries penalty to the corner and the decision to go for it was fully vindicated when, firstly, what was probably our best line out of the match was gathered by Boon, who’d come off the bench a few minutes before, and the ball found its way to the debutant Hougaard who scored in the corner with the last act of the match to put Sarries a point ahead at 20-19 and maintain not only Sarries’ reputation for snatching late wins but also the unhealthily high blood pressure levels of poor Sarries fans.

The missed conversion by Goode was something of an afterthought as both crowd and players celebrated.

This was by no means a great performance by Sarries, perhaps explained by a heavily reshuffled squad and maybe lingering frustration after the loss in Edinburgh the previous week, but as so often happens, we got there in the end.

TEAMS:

Saracens: Goode, Segun, Lozowski, Taylor, Lewington, M. Vunipola, Davies; Hislop, Dan, Judge, Kitchener, Tizard, Christie, Wray (c), B. Vunipola.

Replacements: Pifeleti, Mawi, Clarey, Boon, Ellis, Van Zyl, Tompkins, Hougaard.

Bristol Bears: Lane, Naulago, Radradra, Williams, Ibitoye, MacGinty, Randall; Thomas, Thacker, Lahiff, Batley, Vui, Luatua (c), Heenan, Bradbury.

Replacements: Byrne, Woolmore, Benz-Salomon, Holmes, Harding, Uren, Sheedy, Bates.

Referee: Anthony Woodthorpe.