Pat Lam has laid bare the extent of the ambition at the heart of Bristol Bears with the director of rugby boldly declaring his mission since arriving at Ashton Gate has been to win the Champions Cup.
Lam has previously indicated that becoming a Champions Cup team was the bar for a team who while helped by the benevolence of owner Steve Lansdown, were still playing second-tier rugby just over two years ago.
But in unveiling his coaching team for the 2020/21 season at Bears new training facility at Abbots Leigh, Lam has laid out the three main principles that will guide him, his staff, squad and the rest of the squad.
In a lengthy statement on the Bears website, Lam said: “When I arrived three years ago, I set three key objectives for the rugby programme to achieve our Vision: Win the Champions Cup (our Ambition); Produce England Internationals (our Programme); Develop our Home-Grown Players (our Passion)
"The number one requirement I requested from Steve (Lansdown) and Chris (Booy, chairman) to achieve this, before players, facilities and budget, was the need to build a High Performance Management Team to help me drive the programme and I’m so pleased with the quality of staff we have on board to serve.
"I’m delighted that after an intensive period of recruitment – both internally and externally – we have built a strong Coaching Team that not only have absolute clarity about our game plan and the Bears system, they understand our culture and the world class standards that we demand."
The Bears are yet to even compete in the Champions Cup, let alone reach the knockouts to put themselves in a position to win it, but should graduate to Europe’s top table for 2020/21.
Lam’s side are third in the Premiership with nine games remaining ahead of the expected restart date of August 15 with the rescheduled fixture list due to be released later on Friday.
With a superstar-heavy squad including new arrivals Semi Radradra and Kyle Sinckler plus the wealth of academy talent beginning to come through and a defined club culture, there's no reason not to suggest that Bears can't become the No1 team in Europe.
South African Omar Mouneimne arrived from Worcester Warriors earlier this week as Defence Coach, replacing John Muldoon who is now forwards coach, becoming the final piece in the puzzle for Lam’s backroom staff.
There has been change behind the scenes at the Bears, alongside the work in reshaping the squad, with Mark Irish and Jonathan Thomas departing for Worcester.
"My ambition was to build a coaching team that has true alignment right across the club from the Senior team all the way through to our Academy to ensure the transition through each stage of the Bears pathway is as seamless and clear for all players wherever they enter our Bears programme,” Lam added.
"A key part of our vision is not just to develop our players into better players and better people, but also to develop our staff to become world class.
"While each coach has a specific area of responsibility I like to expose them to all areas of the game on and off the field to ensure they continue to grow as coaches and to help them reach their ultimate goal of possibly becoming Head Coaches themselves which I believe they all can.
"The flow and quality of our brand-new facility ensures excellent internal communication between all our departments and everything is in place for us to serve our playing group, at all levels, to achieve their rugby dreams."
