Pat Lam praised the evolution of his side to be able to grind out a victory against Bristol Bears' bogey side Worcester Warriors on Sunday.
A first half Luke Morahan try as well as some magic from Charles Piutau helped the Bears on the way to a narrow 13-10 victory at Ashton Gate.
While a narrow three point win having had 70 percent possession and 72 percent of the territory is far from a perfect victory considering the bleak recent history against the Warriors Lam was pleased his side saw out the win.
Despite finishing below Bristol in the table in 2018/19, Worcester defeated the Bears home and away last season, including a 50-point loss at Sixways and Lam admitted that last season his side were naïve when they faced their bogey side.
He said: “We tried to impose our style of play on them last year and we lost 50 points.
"I said at the very beginning when I arrived here I don’t want to be known as a team who throws the ball around or just kicks it, I want to be known as a side who does what it needs to do to win and that was a physical challenge that we faced.
“But when you want to be the team we want to be, we’ve got to be good enough to adapt and adjust and that’s why one year on from our first year in the Premiership and we were naïve playing Worcester, we knew what was coming and we prepared accordingly.”
Bristol found themselves playing against 14 men for 20 minutes of the game, with referee JP Doyle sending two Worcester players to sin bin. However, Lam thought that the visitors managed these periods well, allowing the Bears just three points.
“I think seven of it was scrum, reset, scrum, reset, scrum, reset, why is that happening? Very clever. And it’s all sportsmanship, but you know it happened because we dropped the ball from a set-play, so we gave them the opportunity to take enough time of that as well.
“But you know, of course you want to raise the tempo, but sometimes we were to slow get our line-outs set, but ultimately the game was slowed down well.”
The victory means the Bears climb up to third in the Gallagher Premiership at the half way point in the league season, a point behind Sale Sharks in second and Lam knows that his players have stepped up to get the job done.
“I think everyone in the group stepped up today, because not playing the style of rugby you want to play is difficult,” he admitted
“I think that was one of the most physical games we had this year and that’s what we expected because they are ruthless in that area.
“It was a tough battle physically and there are a few sore boys there and so I’m glad we fought the win out at the end.”
