Pat Lam: We were heroic in defence

Bristol director of rugby Pat Lam says doing their best against Bath is “not negotiable as it’s all about the community and supporters”.

“Since I’ve been at the club we’ve beaten them 10 out of 13 times but I remember the defeats, two here and one at Twickenham,” he said. “I’ve always loved playing away as it’s us against everybody.

“Our defence was heroic when we went down to 14. It took them a whole 10 minutes to score whereas if we defended as we did last week against Gloucester it would have only taken 30 seconds.”

Bath’s head of rugby Johann van Graan said: “We conceded too many points in the first half but fought back well. We went down to 14 and left ourselves too much to do as we made too many backed-up errors. We had enough entries into their 22 to make it count but six penalties from them in a second half stopped our momentum.

“We weren’t at our best and it shows that if you are only playing at 90 per cent then most teams in the Premiership will beat you and that was the case today.”

Teams

BATH: Harris 7 (Redpath 52, 7); de Glanville 7, Lawrence , Butt 6, McConnochie 5 (Schreuder 71, 6); Russell 7, Spencer (c) 5; Obano 5 (Van Wyk 42-52, 64, 6), Annett 6 (Dunn 51, 6), du Toit 5 (Stuart 64, 6), Roux 6 (Molony 56, 6), Ewels 6, Hill 6, Pepper 6 (Underhill 56, 6), Reid 5 (Coetzee 52, 6)

BRISTOL: Malins 7 (Bates 77, 6), Lane 7, Janse van Rensburg 9; Williams 6 (Jenkins 15, 6), Ibitoye 8; MacGinty 8, Randall 8 (Marmion 77, 6); Genge 8 (Woolmore 54, 6), Oghre 9 (Capon 44-53, 71, 6), Lahiff 7 (Kloska 54, 6), Dun 7 (Owen 72, 6), Batley 7, Luatua 9 (B Grondona 77, 6), S Grondona 8, Harding (c) 7

REFEREE: Christophe Ridley

ATTENDANCE: 14,509

Star player: Gabriel Oghre – Bristol

READ MORE: Second-best Bath trumped by Bristol Bears