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Pat Lam puts Bristol win over Northampton down to 'pure guts'

By PA
Bristol Bears' Director of Rugby Pat Lam (Photo by Bob Bradford - CameraSport via Getty Images)

Bristol Bears director of rugby Pat Lam hailed the guts shown by his side as they came from behind to claim a 33-27 win over Northampton Saints at cinch Stadium.

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Despite trailing 19-8 in the first half, Bears were able to come from behind to secure a bonus-point success, repelling some late Saints charges to make it two wins from two this season.

Lam was understandably delighted at the way his team came through a tough test.

He said: “I am very proud of the team.

“Once again, the second week in a row, we played as a team.

“Saints came out firing, we had to repel them a couple of times and they scored a couple of good tries but there was a lot of guts from us, particularly when we were down to 14 men with Gabriel Ibitoye in the sin bin.

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      “We just kept them out and worked our way back into the game.

      “The messaging from the players at half-time, and even after they scored out of nothing from the charge down when we were attacking early in the second half, was all so calm.

      “In the end it was just pure guts and keeping to our systems.

      “(Defence coach) Jordan Crane has put a lot of work defending from our try-line and they stuck to it and we got the bonus-point win so I am very pleased.”

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      Two tries from Tom Seabrook and another from Tom Pearson allowed Saints to build a lead before the break.

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      However Magnus Bradbury notched his second try shortly before half-time as Bears got back to within a point.

      Tommy Freeman wrapped up the bonus point for the home side but from there, Bristol seized control, Max Lahiff and Harry Thacker helping them pull clear, much to the frustration of Saints director of rugby Phil Dowson.

      He said: “It was very disappointing.

      “I thought for the first 38 minutes of the game, we looked very good, we looked strong and it was 19-11 just before half-time and we conceded a score that changed the whole complexion of the first half.

      “It gave them a lot of energy and in the second half, we never really got into our stride.

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      “We gave away a lot of penalties and a yellow card clearly didn’t help either so Bristol came back into the game.

      “There’s no lack of effort and we tried to push on in the second half but we just couldn’t get the momentum back after the end of the first half and it took us too long.

      “In the last five minutes we had an opportunity but we’re leaving it too late, as we did last week.

      “We tried to train to cover some of those injuries and of course they are disruptive, but we’ve got a very capable squad and a very capable group of players to deal with that.”

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      Comments

      1 Comment
      K
      KiwiSteve 552 days ago

      Is anyone watching the Premiership during the WC?

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      JW 2 hours ago
      Reds vs Blues: Ex-All Black missed the mark, Lynagh’s Wallabies statement

      Agree re Lynagh.


      Disagree Beaver got it wrong. Blues made that look easy. It might be a brawn over brains picture though? More in the last point, but, and this may have changed by player selection, the Reds were very lucky this game. Tele’a should not have been red carded as Ryan landed on his shoulder, and both Tate and Jock (was it) should have been yellowed carded for their offenses in stopping tries. We also had a try dissallowed by going back 10 phases in play. We all should have learned after the RWC that that is against the rules. So straight away on this simple decisions alone the result changes to go in the Blues favour, away from home and playing fairly poorly. The sleeping giant if you will. I didn’t agree with the Blues take either tbh, but to flip it around and say it’s the Reds instead is completely inaccurate (though a good side no doubt you have to give them a chance).


      And you’re also riding the wave of defense wins matches a bit much. Aside from Dre’s tackling on Rieko I didn’t see anything in that match other than a bit of tiny goal line defending. I think if you role on the tap for another second you see the ball put placed for the try (not that I jump to agree with Eklund purely because he was adamant), and in general those just get scored more often than not. They are doing something good though stopping line breaks even if it is the Blues (and who also got over the line half a dozen times), I did not expect to be greeted with that stat looking at the game.

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      Ashley Carson 2 hours ago
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