Challenge Cup: Pat Lam's Bristol ease past Zebre
Bristol ran in five tries as they recorded a comfortable 35-19 European Challenge Cup victory over Zebre.
The Bears, who won at Perpignan in their opening Pool A fixture last weekend, produced a first-half blitz to lay the foundations for a bonus-point victory at Ashton Gate.
Second row Joe Batley, scrum-half Will Porter and centres Semi Radradra and Ioan Lloyd, who had earlier received a yellow card for a deliberate knock-on which resulted in a penalty try, all crossed before the break.
AJ MacGinty converted on each occasion to send the home side in 28-7 to the good at half-time, and he added a fifth kick 15 minutes after the restart following replacement Yann Thomas’ try.
Winger Kobus van Wyk touched down to reduce the deficit and after Batley’s exit to the sin-bin, replacement Jacques du Toit added a third try for the visitors, although Tiff Eden’s conversion left them still 16 points adrift.
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Who got the benefits out of Schmidt, Lowe, Aki, and Gibson Park?
Go to commentsI’m all for speeding up the game. But can we be certain that the slowness of the game contributed to fans walking out? I’m not so sure. Super rugby largely suffered from most fans only being able to, really, follow the games played in their own time zone. So at least a third of the fan base wasn’t engaged at any point in time. As a Saffer following SA teams in the URC - I now watch virtually every European game played on the weekend. In SR, I wouldn’t be bothered to follow the games being played on the other side of the world, at weird hours, if my team wasn’t playing. I now follow the whole tournament and not just the games in my time zone. Second, with New Zealand teams always winning. It’s like formula one. When one team dominates, people lose interest. After COVID, with SA leaving and Australia dipping in form, SR became an even greater one horse race. Thats why I think Japan’s league needs to get in the mix. The international flavor of those teams could make for a great spectacle. But surely if we believe that shaving seconds off lost time events in rugby is going to draw fans back, we should be shown some figures that supports this idea before we draw any major conclusions. Where are the stats that shows these changes have made that sort of impact? We’ve measured down to the average no. Of seconds per game. Where the measurement of the impact on the fanbase? Does a rugby “fan” who lost interest because of ball in play time suddenly have a revived interest because we’ve saved or brought back into play a matter of seconds or a few minutes each game? I doubt it. I don’t thinks it’s even a noticeable difference to be impactful. The 20 min red card idea. Agreed. Let’s give it a go. But I think it’s fairer that the player sent off is substituted and plays no further part in the game as a consequence.
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