Bristol left in limbo by owner

Almost smiling again
By Sparkie
April 22 2003

While Bristol's owner, Malcolm Pearce, chose to spend Easter in France, the Bris faithful departed the Memorial Ground following London Wasps second-half stroll staring at the bottom of an empty glass. They have three weeks to find 5000 punters and enough points to secure safety.

As in midweek, Bris had their lights burning brightly in the first half. They contained Wasps with ease although turnovers stifled any enterprise. After the break, however, they were not at all at home as their infamously sparse defending leaked five tries.

Pearce's schemes to shock the Bristol club back to life seems to have backfired with deadly paralysis. Their crowd will have to traipse across the city to Ashton Gate to attend their last game of the season, an eight pointer against Bath. If they are to enjoy any more rugby at the Mem., they have to beat one of their relegation rivals and trust that Pearce belays his threat to move the club if an unfeasible number of season ticket holders aren't signed up. Small wonder that the players and coaches are operating under a cloud.

Bris got the better of the opening exchanges and Shane Drahm slotted a penalty goal after a scrummaging offence in the fifth minute. Wasps posted our intent two minutes later by forcing play in the tight before unleashing the backs on third phase ball. Alex King attacked the gap between the centres and slid over but Craig Dowd had performed a trademark "Southern Cross" and was penalised for obstruction.

The first quarter ended with Bristol's scrummage under increasing pressure. Rhys Oakley managed to tidy up some scrappy channeling and Bris broke over halfway before catching Wasps offside. A quick tap and go yielded Drahm a 35m penalty attempt but he missed an easy chance to stretch their lead.

Wasps continued to concentrate on hitting the rucks and breaking blind, finding Dowd in space. However, the Kiwi prop was so surprised that he passed behind Josh Lewsey and the overlap went begging. Another Bris scrum was shunted backwards and Wasps stole the ball against the head but John Rudd was bundled into touch on the short side. Rudd fielded the attempted clearance and ran back to our forwards. A few phases later Stuart Abbott overlapped to open our account with King converting the try.

As is our wont, Wasps failed to pay sufficient attention to the restart kick. The ball was coughed up and led to another penalty goal for Drahm. We were immediately offered a penalty in exchange but King pulled his penalty attempt wide. Both teams were turning over ball in midfield too much to trouble the scorer. Bris had some second phase ball spoilt after a line-out and Drahm regained the lead with a third penalty before half-time.

It all went wrong for Bristol on the resumption. Oakley failed to deal with King's deep drop kick and the ball cannoned off his boot to Nelson standing in a now offside position five metres in front. The hooker couldn't help but play the ball and White had no option but to penalise him. Wasps opted for the penalty line-out and Paul Volley was mauled over from close range.

To give them their due, Bris weren't done yet. Their own penalty line-out move came to nought but soon afterwards Drahm missed a dropped goal during an advantage. Bris kept up the pressure but were driven back towards halfway. Drahm took the opportunity to equalise the scoreline but he missed for a second time. It was almost Bristol's last throw of the dice.

By the 50th minute it was obvious that Felipe Comtepomi had run out of gas in his first match back after injury. Why he wasn't replaced and the back line reshuffled only Peter Thorburn knows. Suddenly Wasps were pouring through gaps, finding space and scoring almost at will. First a lineout maul on our 10 metre line allowed King enough space to make a clean blindside break. He linked with Abbott who took the ball up to the 22 before Lewsey switched inside to the posts. King converted, Bris wilted.

Just four minutes later Wasps opened up second phase ball and Will Green darted to Bristol's 10 metre line before spreading the ball through the hands of Joe Worsley, Lawrence Dallaglio and Abbott once more skinned the defence before eschewing Lewsey in favour of Mark van Gisbergen inside. Wasps had secured a four-try bonus point by the 58th minute.

Once again we gave away a penalty at the restart and Sheridan got close to scoring following a quick tap and go. Volley was warned about being offside as Drahm kicked a penalty goal to keep the match alive. Wasps rang the changes allowing Phil Greening and Kenny Logan a welcome run out. Unfortunately Volley decided to take ten too, giving Bris the impetus to take the game by the scruff of the neck.

Sheridan continued to make the hard yards and Pichot deserved to score from another quick tap with Wasps at sixes and sevens. The referee could have awarded a penalty try for the first offence and he seemed to overlook Dallaglio wilfully staying offside at the resulting ruck to deny Bris any advantage. Our captain should have joined Volley for that one. It must have insensed Bris as they blew the penalty line-out attempt.

Volley returned in time to witness Rudd skin Pichot and co. before he fed Greening. Worsley took the ball on but the move looked to have broken down as he opted to go into contact on the 22. Fortunately the second phase ball was kept alive as it made its way messily across the field to Ayoola Erinle who sauntered in at the corner with five minutes to go.

There was still time for Worsley to get on the end of another long range effort and Brendon Daniel to reply with a consolation try in the final minute with an apopleptic Dallaglio watching from the bench. Oxygen was required by a number of tired players not used to sevens style football.

This defeat hurt Bristol deeply and they have got a lot of work to do to shore up their defence. If you want to know what one of their players thought afterwards, read his somnambulent thoughts.

As for Wasps, we seem to keep winning without playing for the full 80 minutes which is a sign of confidence. Our discipline must be improved in Pontypridd to keep their Friday night crowd from getting behind their team. Our forwards were magnificent, as were King and Abbott but we will need to keep the ball far better as their were far too many turnovers. I wonder if we can play Joel Dumé as well as we played Chris White?

Bristol: Drahm; Daniel, Christophers, Gibson (Carrington 39-40), Best (Williams 65); Contepomi, Pichot; Sheridan, Nelson (Johnstone 60), Skuse, Archer (Capt.), Brown, Salter (Morgan 76), Lipman, Oakley (Short 59). Reps not used: Rowland, Richards.

Wasps: Van Gisbergen (Logan 61); Lewsey, Abbott (Denney 76), Erinle, Rudd; King, Howley (Wood 68); Dowd (McKenzie 76), Leota (Greening 61), Green, Shaw, Birkett, Worsley, Volley (Lock 76), Dallaglio (Capt., Scrivener 76).

Sin-binned: Volley (64)

Referee: C White (Cheltenham). Att: 4,866