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Bristol Bears boss Pat Lam praised his side’s fighting spirit as they came from behind to record a fourth successive victory in the Gallagher Premiership with a 33-24 win away to Gloucester at Kingsholm.
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Second-half scores from Magnus Bradbury and Benhard Janse van Rensburg proved decisive as the Bears kept alive their hopes of getting amongst the play-off places with just four rounds of the regular season remaining.
Lam, however, was refusing to get too carried away, insisting the focus is on Newcastle Falcons next and nothing more than that.
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“I’m really pleased with the boys,” said Lam. “We came in at half-time and I said ‘boys, you’re not far off’. We had gifted them three tries and the message was not to give them any more points and just keep coming at them. In the second half, the boys just kept coming and coming.”
Having trailed 24-19 at the break, the Bears dominated virtually the whole second half and they were duly rewarded for their efforts with all five points.
“It’s not about the Premiership, it’s about our performance,” added Lam. “When we came back from the break the whole focus was on Saints. Once we did that, I said it’s about Gloucester. Now, our only concern is Newcastle in two weeks’ time. We looked at it, there’s six internationals for us, so we’ve done two Test matches, now we’ve got a third one and that’s our only concern.”
Bristol’s win lifts them to sixth in the current standings, whilst Gloucester – who sit ninth – still have to make up six points on Sale Sharks to get into the final Champions Cup spot.
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Gloucester head coach George Skivington had few complaints come the final whistle. He said: “Like I said at the start of this six-game block, for us it’s about going hard at every game. There are a few lads out there tonight who I wanted to see start in a Premiership game against what I knew would be a good team. I’ve learnt a bit and they’ve definitely learnt a bit, both good and bad.
“If I’m being honest, Bristol were the better side today. I thought in attack we were OK in the first half, but defensively we were miles off. We spoke about that at half-time and although I think we were better defensively in the second half, we didn’t really put ourselves in a position to fire a shot because Bristol were very good.”
Among those to impress for the Bears was full-back Max Malins, whose showing will have been noted by watching England head coach Steve Borthwick.
“He’s done very well these last few weeks,” said Lam. “I always have a lot of admiration for people who bounce back. He had a tough time at the World Cup and with injuries, but when he came on last week – and what he did in 23 minutes then and 80 minutes again today – he did some great stuff.”
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