Yann Thomas

Bristol fly-half Callum Sheedy admits his side’s 26-18 win over a strong South African XV at a packed Ashton Gate will live long in his memory and hopes it will be the catalyst for a change in form for the Bears.South Africa ‘A’ fielded 12 full internationals in their match-day 23 but were a disjointed outfit and fell to their second defeat on their short tour after losing 28-14 to Munster in Cork last week. Gabriel Ibitoye and Yann Thomas scored Bristol’s tries in front of sell-out crowd of over 26,000 and Wales international Sheedy admits it was an evening he will not forget in a hurry.He said: “It was a really special night, playing against a national side on your home ground before a huge crowd, compared with playing for Wales and will live with me for a long time.“We knew we had to force errors from them and test their skills under pressure and we succeeded in forcing them to play deep.“It was a massive defensive effort from us, especially just before half-time, when the crowd lifted us to win a turnover, when we were under huge pressure and ultimately it proved crucial.“We know we have a very dangerous back three and fortunately we were able to score tries at the right time.”Bristol came into the game having lost five successive Gallagher Premiership matches to drop into the bottom two of the standings.They next face Gloucester in the Premiership Cup on Saturday before returning to league action the following weekend with a trip to high-flying Sale.Sheedy said: “We haven’t been happy with our results in the last four or five weeks so hopefully this win will give us some momentum ahead of Saturday’s Premiership Cup game with Gloucester and our next Premiership fixture at Sale.”Bristol director of rugby Pat Lam said: “I’m really proud of the boys as we produced an excellent kicking game and hunted well to win the territory battle.“When I first came to the club we were getting crowds of 9-10,000 and we knew we needed to get more fans in.“We thought it would be brilliant to get a national side here and through a contact of mine, we were able to set this up and the fans have wholeheartedly supported it. “I’m hoping there will be more as it would be great to get the All Blacks, Australia or Argentina here at Ashton Gate.”Ntuthuko Mchunu and Sikhumbuzo Notshe scored the visitors’ tries with Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu kicking two penalties and Johan Goosen adding a conversion.Fly-half Feinberg-Mngomezulu was disappointed with the result and admitted his side contributed to their own downfall. He said: “Ill-discipline let us down as we gave them needless opportunities.“For the opening period, we were in control of the game but then let them back into it.“After that they seemed to win most of the scraps but it’s disappointing as we feel it was more of a case of us losing the game than them beating us.”

by PA