After a weekend of domestic rugby drama, yesterday’s game against London Irish was a fitting encore.
Talk about a game of two halves! With the Bears posting a record half time score, it would have taken a brave pundit to predict the extent of the Irish comeback.
But come back they did, showing the sort of ambition and execution that we have come to expect from Bristol.
It was a game of fast running rugby that had everything and will provide a highlights package of dazzling footwork, outrageous flicks and smashing hits.
The neutral fans will have been purring about the number of tries but for the Bristol faithful there will be plenty of head scratching as we try to make sense of how we threw away such a commanding lead.
Against Gloucester we shot ourselves in the foot with sloppy passing and risky plays and just about got away with it but yesterday it seemed like it was the impact of the substitutions that played a major part in the second half turnaround.
The Irish bench made far more of an impact than ours and perhaps some of the learnings this week will not only revolve around mistakes on the pitch but also decisions made from the side.
Did we take some players off too early [John Afoa 40 minutes, Charles Piutau 56 minutes, Steven Luatua 58 minutes] or was it simply a case of being overwhelmed by a gathering Irish storm?
It is hard to say for sure but this should take nothing away from the spectacle and full credit must go to both teams for the contributions that the made to it and their continued desire to play proper rugby right up to the death.
This was clearly a game that needed a crowd and can you imagine what the atmosphere would have been like in the last ten minutes?
The emotion of live sport is the thread that binds us together and being unable to experience games such as this first hand is the one blemish on what has, overall, been an excellent season for Bristol so far.
But we are still top of the table and we move on to the next challenge of Leicester Tigers on Saturday. We must also be patient and hold onto the belief that experiencing the guttural roar of ‘Briiiistol’ won’t be far away.
You can listen to Bear Beyond the Gate on all major podcast platforms including Apple, Spotify and BuzzSprout
