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'Bursting their backside' video has Bristol enthused for the future
By Liam Heagney
Pat Lam has isolated one moment from last Friday night’s Heineken Champions Cup exit that fills him with confidence that Bristol will emerge from their season of adversity as a much better team in 2022/23. Life under Lam at Bristol since 2017 has been all about progression, their 2018 Championship title getting followed by incremental progress back in the top flight which culminated in a first-place regular-season finish last season along with a 2020 Challenge Cup title win in Europe.
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However, just when it seemed they were poised to go and achieve even better this season, they have encountered the first major slippage of the Lam era as they currently occupy a miserable tenth place in the Premiership and are now eliminated from Europe following their 44-39 aggregate defeat in the round of 16 stage.
It represents a massive downturn for a club that was looking to contest titles on two fronts at the business end of the season in May and June, but the director of rugby Lam has highlighted an incident from last weekend’s Ashton Gate loss to the Sharks as a reason to be optimistic that the attitude is still more than encouraging in the Bristol ranks despite their run of disappointing losses.
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Asked ahead of this Friday’s league derby at home to Gloucester how his Bristol squad were coping with adversity after four previous seasons of real progress, Lam replied: “Really impressed and that is the thing inside the group: they are always under a lot of pressure, the young ones in particular.
“They are in a social media world. I’m glad I am an old guy because I am not really on that. People will tell me things that are said and I’m like, ‘Well, it’s over my head’. The things they have to deal with, like any sportsperson, are tough but as an example on the field (of their attitude) – and I have seen this so many times, it was a starter play and we won it.
“Piers O’Conor carried hard about 20 metres out from the line but Jono Ross hit him and he knocked the ball on in the tackle. They kicked ahead, Akker van der Merwe kicked ahead 80 metres. In that video we showed the number of guys that sprinted – and a lot of forwards sprinted. Sam Jeffries, Jake Kerr, Callum Sheedy are all bursting their backside to get back and Sam Jeffries ended up diving on the ball, Callum went to pick it up and passed to Alapati (Leiua). The pass didn’t get to Alapati and they dived on the ball and then two guys came around, Sam went again and we secured it, came out and then Fitzy (Harding) ran.
“I said to the boys, this is an example of why I thank you for your efforts, an example of our culture that no one is giving up here, they fight back and hang on in there. Not many teams aside from Harlequins, who do it all the time, go 24-3 down and fight their way back. It’s just unfortunate we didn’t finish it off. I am very impressed, very impressed, and these are life experiences that will hold them in good stead.”
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