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Bristol battle past Leicester at Ashton Gate to extend Premiership lead

By PA
Bristol's John Afoa. (Photo by David Rogers/Getty Images)

Bristol extended their advantage at the top of the Gallagher Premiership to six points with a hard-fought 17-3 win over a spirited Leicester at Ashton Gate but the league leaders struggled to overcome weakened opponents.

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Leicester made numerous changes following last week’s home win over Wasps and their young side frustrated the Bears in the first half-hour.

The sin-binning of their centre Matias Maroni proved decisive as Bristol scored 14 points in his absence.

Will Capon and Piers O’Conor scored Bristol’s tries, with Ioan Lloyd adding two conversions and a penalty, while Joaquin Diaz Bonilla kicked a penalty for Leicester.

Bristol made an all-action start but it took them until the 12th minute to carve out a real chance to open the scoring.

Lloyd was given the opportunity to kick a straightforward penalty but the Bears elected for an attacking lineout, overthrowing and squandering the chance.

The hosts persisted with their option of not taking kickable penalties but twice in quick succession they again blew their opportunity as again their lineout malfunctioned.

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Leicester then had their first chance at points but they could not take them either as fly-half Bonilla was off target with a 45-metre penalty attempt.

The first quarter therefore finished scoreless as determined tackling from the visitors continued to frustrate their opponents and their commitment would have been rewarded if Bonilla’s 40-metre penalty from in front of the posts had not fallen short.

Two minutes later the outside half had a similar kick and this time he made no mistake to give the Tigers a 29th-minute lead.

However Moroni was sin-binned for a deliberate knock-on which proved costly as first Capon finished off a driving lineout before a well-constructed move from a scrum 10 metres out saw Luke Morahan send O’Conor over. Lloyd converted both to give his side a deserved 14-3 lead.

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Soon after the restart Bristol took off the impressive Morahan, with Leicester introducing first-choice forwards Dan Cole and Calum Green.

Lloyd extended Bristol’s lead with a simple penalty but that was the precursor for the Tigers to have their best period of the match as the visitors’ front row caused their counterparts continual problems in the scrum, but they lacked the attacking nous to capitalise.

Lloyd’s penalty was the only score of an evenly contested second half, with Leicester emerging with great credit for competing toe to toe with the league leaders for most of the match.

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J
Jon 9 hours ago
Jake White: Are modern rugby players actually better?

This is the problem with conservative mindsets and phycology, and homogenous sports, everybody wants to be the same, use the i-win template. Athlete wise everyone has to have muscles and work at the gym to make themselves more likely to hold on that one tackle. Do those players even wonder if they are now more likely to be tackled by that player as a result of there “work”? Really though, too many questions, Jake. Is it better Jake? Yes, because you still have that rugby of ole that you talk about. Is it at the highest International level anymore? No, but you go to your club or checkout your representative side and still engage with that ‘beautiful game’. Could you also have a bit of that at the top if coaches encouraged there team to play and incentivized players like Damian McKenzie and Ange Capuozzo? Of course we could. Sadly Rugby doesn’t, or didn’t, really know what direction to go when professionalism came. Things like the state of northern pitches didn’t help. Over the last two or three decades I feel like I’ve been fortunate to have all that Jake wants. There was International quality Super Rugby to adore, then the next level below I could watch club mates, pulling 9 to 5s, take on the countries best in representative rugby. Rugby played with flair and not too much riding on the consequences. It was beautiful. That largely still exists today, but with the world of rugby not quite getting things right, the picture is now being painted in NZ that that level of rugby is not required in the “pathway” to Super Rugby or All Black rugby. You might wonder if NZR is right and the pathway shouldn’t include the ‘amateur’, but let me tell you, even though the NPC might be made up of people still having to pull 9-5s, we know these people still have dreams to get out of that, and aren’t likely to give them. They will be lost. That will put a real strain on the concept of whether “visceral thrill, derring-do and joyful abandon” type rugby will remain under the professional level here in NZ. I think at some point that can be eroded as well. If only wanting the best athlete’s at the top level wasn’t enough to lose that, shutting off the next group, or level, or rugby players from easy access to express and showcase themselves certainly will. That all comes back around to the same question of professionalism in rugby and whether it got things right, and rugby is better now. Maybe the answer is turning into a “no”?

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