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In-form Bristol continue play-off push after brushing aside Harlequins

By PA
Gabriel Ibitoye of Bristol Bears takes on Andre Esterhuizen of Harlequins during the Gallagher Premiership Rugby match between Bristol Bears and Harlequins at Ashton Gate on March 12, 2023 in Bristol, England. (Photo by Dan Mullan/Getty Images)

Bristol Bears continued their climb up the Gallagher Premiership table with an impressive 51-26 win over Harlequins at Ashton Gate.

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The Bears scored seven tries, with Harry Thacker and Charles Piutau both recording braces and Gabriel Ibitoye, Semi Radradra and Harry Randall also crossing.

Harlequins flanker Jack Kenningham scored a try double of his own from close-range drives while wingers Josh Bassett and Cadan Murley ensured the visitors returned home with a bonus point.

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After four Premiership wins on the bounce, Bristol are now seven points from the play-off places with a game in hand over their rivals. Harlequins sit eighth, one point and one place below the Bears.

Bristol wasted little time in opening the scoring with hooker Thacker spinning off the side of a maul from a lineout to dot the ball down in the corner.

But the lead was short-lived as Kenningham dived over a ruck after sustained bombardment by the visiting forwards.

The tries continued to flow in the dry conditions in BS3 with Piutau unlocking the Londoners’ defence with an out-the-back offload to Ibitoye who cut in off the left wing to run in under the posts, celebrating before dotting down against his former club.

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Shortly after, Bristol winger Siva Naulago had a try disallowed for a knock on, but the Bears fans only had to wait a couple of minutes to celebrate again. The Fijian fooled the Harlequins’ defence with a dummy run to open up a gap for Thacker, who finished an arcing run under the posts which started off the top of a lineout 20 metres out.

Within 24 minutes the hosts had the bonus point wrapped up as fly-half AJ MacGinty delayed a pass beautifully before hitting Radradra on a straight line which again ended under the sticks.

Harlequins hit back with a nice foray down the left wing, working an overlap to put Dino Lamb away along the touchline before the lock passed back inside to Bassett to finish the cutting move.

USA international MacGinty added a penalty to take his tally to 11 points and put Bristol 31-12 ahead after 30 minutes before he limped soon after to be replaced by Sam Bedlow.

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Bristol opened the scoring in the second half with a penalty from the boot of James Williams.

Kenningham then powered over from close range for his second of the afternoon before the Bears responded with a superb purple patch to blow the game out of the water.

First Randall sniped his way over and Harlequins lost hooker Sam Riley to the sin bin for a high tackle.

With the extra man, Piutau finished two wonderful, sweeping attacking moves to continue his rich vein of personal form.

Murley’s interception from Bedlow’s pass and 80m run-in secured the bonus point for Harlequins, on a day largely to forget for Tabai Matson’s men.

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J
JW 19 minutes ago
How law changes are speeding up the game - but the scrum lags behind

Very good, now we are getting somewhere (though you still didn't answer the question but as you're a South African I think we can all assume what the answer would be if you did lol)! Now let me ask you another question, and once you've answered that to yourself, you can ask yourself a followup question, to witch I'm intrigued to know the answer.


Well maybe more than a couple of questions, just to be clear. What exactly did this penalty stop you from doing the the first time that you want to try again? What was this offence that stopped you doing it? Then ask yourself how often would this occur in the game. Now, thinking about the regularity of it and compare it to how it was/would be used throughout the rest of the game (in cases other than the example you gave/didn't give for some unknown reason).


What sort of balance did you find?


Now, we don't want to complicate things further by bringing into the discussion points Bull raised like 'entirety' or 'replaced with a ruck', so instead I'll agree that if we use this article as a trigger to expanding our opinions/thoughts, why not allow a scrum to be reset if that is what they(you) want? Stopping the clock for it greatly removes the need to stop 5 minutes of scrum feeds happening. Fixing the law interpretations (not incorrectly rewarding the dominant team) and reducing the amount of offences that result in a penalty would greatly reduce the amount of repeat scrums in the first place. And now that refs a card happy, when a penalty offence is committed it's going to be far more likely it results in the loss of a player, then the loss of scrums completely and instead having a 15 on 13 advantage for the scrum dominant team to then run their opposition ragged. So why not take the scrum again (maybe you've already asked yourself that question by now)?


It will kind be like a Power Play in Hockey. Your outlook here is kind of going to depend on your understanding of what removing repeat scrums was put in place for, but I'm happy the need for it is gone in a new world order. As I've said on every discussion on this topic, scrums are great, it is just what they result in that hasn't been. Remove the real problem and scrum all you like. The All Blacks will love zapping that energy out of teams.

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