Bristol Bears’ ill-discipline cost them dear as Saracens produced a dominant second-half performance to remain at the top of the Gallagher Premiership,
Tries from substitutes Harry Thacker and Jonathan Benz-Solomon were ultimately in vain as a brilliant try from Bristol-bound Max Malins and six Alex Goode penalties extended the league leaders unbeaten run.
Bristol Head Coach Pat Lam, praised his side’s effort but lamented the penalty count, as Sarries took full advantage of an inexperienced Bristol outfit.
“Obviously, we’re disappointed we lost but with the conditions and playing Saracens, we have to play a certain style, in a similar way to when we won against them before. So, there is a lot more kicking, we need a lot more effort off the ball, which I got. I was really pleased with the effort but ultimately it’s going to come down to little margins and Max (Malins) before half-time does a Max Malins thing and then we gave two penalties away straight away and suddenly from 0-0 with nine minutes to go, it’s 13-0.”
“We talked about at half-time, don’t get bored, stay patient but we’re going to have to get the little things right. Whether it’s the quality of our breakdown, your lineouts, scrums, all those things which it’s going to come down to and unfortunately we were on the wrong side of a penalty count of 15-5 or 15-6 I think it was in Saracens favour.”
Saturday was the beginning of the Autumn Internationals, outside the Premiership window and Lam was without several stars such as England props Ellis Genge and Kyle Sinckler.
This saw the head coach turn to youth and he he handed five players their first starts and the New-Zealander was pleased with how they fared.
“ It was a wonderful debut for both Joe Jenkins and Deago Bailey, Joe Tyack and Gabes Ibitoye finally got off the mark, with his first game for the club. I thought those four did extremely well and Will Porter played his first game and showed his quality as well.”
Despite Lam’s upbeat tone the defeat continues their dismal run and the Bears are now without a win since their 40-36 victory over London Irish in September.
However, Lam still remains confident the the Bears can turn their fortunes around.
“ I think we continue to build our game. As we’ve said the results will take care of themselves as we continue to grow and build as a group. We have a lot of people out and we have a lot of people to come back. So continue to build the winter part of the game if you like. We’ve now got three good games to build before we come back to the Premiership.”
Those games are friendlies against Cardiff Blues and World Champions South Africa before a Premiership Rugby Cup clash away at Gloucester on the 19th November.
