Pat Lam is set to earn his sizeable wages in the coming week as he has the difficult job of picking up the pieces and putting Bristol Bears back together after they were decimated by Harlequins on Friday night.
In June, Harlequins did the impossible and came back from 28-0 down to beat Bristol 45-36 in AET time in the Premiership semi-final at Ashton. The London side of course went on to lift the league trophy, beating Exeter Chiefs 40-38 in an equally remarkable game.
Most outside observers agree the Bears are yet to heal the wounds of that defeat and attribute last season’s table-toppers starting the 2021/22 season so poorly, beating just Bath while now losing three times, to the damage caused that June day.
Lam has long since insisted his side have moved on from ‘Bristanbul’, but even the language he uses to describe the defeat appears telling, using the analogy of grieving a death.
The problem with that analogy is, as anyone who has experienced the death of a loved one will sadly know, you never stop feeling the loss, the pain just gets smaller over time.
Certainly on the evidence of Friday night’s dramatic collapse to Harlequins again, this time going from 21-0 up to lose 52-24, 111 days does not seem to have been long enough for the Bears to right the ship.
The string of poor results means Bristol have sunk to 12th in the table and now Lam has a hell of a job on his hands plugging the holes to inflate their league position in the coming weeks.
The seemingly rising tide of doubt amongst the team while under pressure on the field is not helped by four of Lam’s key lieutenants being either absent or dramatically off their game.
Fly-half Callum Sheedy, dubbed the coach on the field by Lam, is one man struggling for his best form, having stopped being the running threat that saw him burst onto the international scene, reigniting hope in the Valleys that the day of the running Welsh stand-off has come again.
Instead, Sheedy shipped the ball wide time after time with little to no variation against Quins, making 41 passes and just six runs, to finish with a measly grand total of two metres made with the ball in hand.
In contrast, his opposite number Marcus Smith made 16 passes and eight runs for 32m having come off the bench for the injured Tommy Allan late in the first half.
Both men have international ambitions, Sheedy already has 12 caps, but it is Smith who is speeding towards the Autumn internationals as the talk of the rugby-loving nation.
The lack of mystery in Sheedy’s play allowed the Harlequins defence to shift across without fear of being exposed, in doing so eating up the space needed for Bristol's Plan A to come off.
Two of the club’s other key leaders, John Afoa and Steven Luatua, both missed the game through injury.
Afoa could be back from a fractured eye socket this coming weekend while fellow former All Black Luatua was considered touch and go with a calf injury on Friday, failing a late fitness test, so could also be back in the mix away at Newcastle.
Number eight Nathan Hughes, the battering ram in this Bristol pack when at his best, is also off the pace having started the season in poor form.
He was dropped for the derby win over Bath and the trip to Quins only to be promoted to the bench when Luatua withdrew.
Hughes certainly looked motivated when he joined the action on Friday night, in a positive sign, while elsewhere number eight club rival Mitch Eadie was named man of the match playing on loan at Hartpury.
Sam Bedlow played relatively well at inside centre against Harlequins, but Bristol are also still adjusting to the loss of their defensive leader in the backline Siale Piutau who joined the Shimizu Koto Blue Sharks in Japan over the summer.
Add into the mix the absence of three key strike runners in the backline in Semi Radradra (knee), Siva Naulago (broken arm) and Luke Morahan and you have the perfect storm.
Key players out of form, leaders missing, lack of attacking options.
After the final whistle at The Stoop, Lam fell back into his armour of discussing the game in the context of the ‘system’ he has created at the Bears over the last four years.
The argument is a simple one, players need to get in line and commit unreservedly from minute one to minute 81 to the game plan.
Lam said: “He just talked about it now in the shed. When we do what we talked about and what we trained we are a really good team. When we break out of that [it goes wrong]
“They are a good attacking side, we knew they were going to come back, we spoke at half time that we needed to keep the ball and be good at the breakdown and we were destroyed in the breakdown in that second half.
“I will go back and see whether it was our fault or because of them but we have to tidy that area because we lost all continuity.”
While there really are no easy games in the Gallagher Premiership this season the good news for Bristol is they have a relatively kind run of fixtures to get their campaign back on track with a trip to Newcastle Falcons next weekend, a bye week and then London Irish away and Worcester Warriors at home.
Three wins and the world will be looking a lot rosier.
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