Louis Rees-Zammit may have been denied a hat-trick against Northampton but there is no doubting who stole the show as Bristol maintained their flying start to the season by downing the champions. The Wales winger scored twice, earned the Bears’ late penalty try and, just to make clear that there is more than one showman in town, produced his own version of Henry Pollock’s pulse celebration.
“I obviously know Pollock has done that before so I thought I’d just give it a little bit back,” said Rees-Zammit. “Me and Pollock are really close. He’s doing great things for the sport. If we’re going to grow this game we need personalities, he’s definitely one and he’s got to do something next week after the forfeit we spoke about yesterday.”
All things told, it was a fine day for Bristol - a nasty-looking head injury to Benhard Janse van Rensburg aside - and a pretty miserable one for Northampton. The Bears helped themselves to six tries with Gabriel Oghre, Tom Jordan and the excellent Harry Randall also on the scoresheet but it is the defensive resilience that will please Pat Lam most. Back in May, Bristol shipped 94 points to the Saints at Northampton but there is far more steel about them on this evidence.
“I’ve watched that game five times,” said Bristol’s director of rugby Lam. “I never watched a game five times in the off-season. Though it hurt, I watched it and built the whole pre-season around that in a sense.”
The downside was Van Rensburg’s injury. He received lengthy treatment and was taken off on a stretcher just before half-time and appeared to be knocked out cold. The South-African born centre is all-action but suffered the same fate during England’s summer victory over Argentina. He was seen by the Bristol dug out in the second half, however, allaying fears that the injury was serious.
For the champions, it was a day to forget. For the first hour, pretty much everything that could go wrong did. Balls were dropped, sitters were missed, tries were disallowed and the lineout went horribly awry. Pollock began brightly but endured a disappointing afternoon too, taking a painful looking low blow in the first half for good measure.
Then came Alex Mitchell from the replacements bench and Northampton briefly threatened the unlikeliest of comebacks but two late yellow cards - the second for Tommy Freeman for a bodycheck on Rees-Zammit which led to a penalty try - put paid to that. “I’m not going to lie, I was devastated,” added Rees-Zammit. “It was just fire in my belly to score a hat-trick. I’m good friends with Tommy and it’s all love after but in the moment I was a bit gutted.”
Fitz Harding was a constant presence at the breakdown for the Bears and his early turnover gave Bristol a lineout deep in Northampton’s 22, from which there was no stopping the lineout drive with Oghre dotting down. However, Northampton hit back almost immediately with George Hendy going over on the left after a burst from Pollock.
Bristol seized the initiative thereafter and Rees-Zammit eventually went over after a smart pass from Oghre. Northampton had endured a pretty torrid first 39 minutes all told and Ollie Sleightholme’s fumble on the right with the try-line beckoning just about summed up their first-half performance. They probed just before the interval, however, and it was then that Van Rensburg’s head struck a stray knee.
The match restarted with a Northampton scrum. Another strike move, another try for Hendy and suddenly it was a one-point game at half-time. To the Bears’ credit, they raised their game again with Jordan stretching to the line before Randall sniped over from close range. Rees-Zammit splashed over for his second to give Bristol breathing space after a touch of good fortune, with James Williams’ penalty striking a post before Mitchell inspired a mini revival from Saints.
First he scooted under the posts before teeing up Josh Kemeny in the left corner, but Fin Smith pulled the conversion to keep Bristol’s lead at eight points. And after Northampton’s replacement prop Ion Neculai was shown a yellow card, the Bears finished the game on top.
Max Pepper was disallowed a try before Rees-Zammit was cynically denied a hat-trick by Freeman, who was sent to the sin-bin, with referee Ian Tempest choosing to award a penalty try. “I’d hate to think we would ever panic, regardless of the result,” said Northampton’s director of rugby Phil Dowson. “The overwhelming feeling is frustration. There’s no panic but we don’t want to make the same mistake twice.”
