Bristol Bears director of rugby Pat Lam called on his players to finish the job and claim a position as one of the top two seeds of the Challenge Cup after confirming a home quarter final with a commanding 52-3 home victory over Brive.
The Bears will be back at Ashton Gate in Europe again this season in the quarter-finals in April having extended their unbeaten run in Europe this season to ensure they finish in top spot in Pool 4.
Reflecting on the victory having lost their last three games in the Gallagher Premiership heading into this game, Lam said: “All in all, I’m pleased, but that’s now part five, we’ve got to get to Zebre and secure the top two seeds."
A top two finish would ensure that should Bristol reach the semi-finals they would also play in their home comforts of Ashton Gate, giving the club the best possible chance of making the final in Marseille.
After a disappointing festive period the Bears were much improved, something which pleased Lam after defeats to Leicester Tigers, Wasps and Saracens.
He said: “We looked at where we were at and we worked on that this week and applied that here, obviously the speed of the ball was much improved.
“First-half, there was some good stuff but we turned over the ball, I think we had six turnovers after fifteen minutes and fifteen after thirty minutes, we spoke about that at half-time.
“There were people treating the ball like a hot potato, where as people like Dave Attwood and Luke Hamilton were treating it with respect and getting us good go forward, and that allowed us to put some pressure on.”
Both Hamilton and Attwood came into the side as part of eight changes from the defeat last week at Leicester and Lam felt the former Scottish and England internationals both stood out.
He said: “It’s a good example of coming in and doing your job, they were aggressive, when you play the game you’ve got to earn the right to move the ball and their decision making to carry hard and still look for the offload was great.
"They were physical, they were direct and they both played really well.”
After conceding fifteen tries in the last three games, a huge positive of the Bears performance was the strong defence, restricting Brive to a solitary penalty, something which they’ve identified needs improvement.
“There’s been a lot of desperation in the last three games and that only came because we weren’t urgent when we needed to be, we talk about being urgent before we need to be desperate and that’s not talent, that’s just decisions,” Lam said.
“We’ve identified in previous games that we’ve been moving slowly, and today the ball was in the air and going behind us and guys were sprinting, running back and once you’ve got shape that’s the foundation if you like of our defence, then we can get going forward.
“If guys are slow getting back, then you get cut up. That did happen at times, but the desperation to get back and the scramble was good.”
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