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How Bristol have rated 19-year-old Ioan Lloyd in his two Premiership starts at No10
By Liam Heagney
Bristol have given their feedback on the recent performances of Ioan Lloyd, the 19-year-old rookie out-half who has made consecutive starts in recent weeks in the No10 role having initially made his breakthrough at the Gallagher Premiership club as a winger and at full-back.
The Ashton Gate hammering of Bath and last weekend's home loss to Sale was the first time the young Wales prospect had started in the Premiership for Bristol at out-half, Callum Sheedy's involvement in Wales' Guinness Six Nations campaign paving the way for Lloyd to be given a shot at being the Bears talisman.
Whereas Lloyd was able to make 46 metres off eleven runs and put in 14 passes during his 56 minutes behind a dominant pack in the 46-point win versus Bath, he was restricted to 16 metres off seven carries (and 14 more passes) in last week's 80-minute appearance in a seven-point loss to Sale where Bristol's pack didn't have things their own way.
Lloyd is now looking ahead to his third out-half Premiership start this Friday night when Bristol travel to bottom side Gloucester and Bears coach Pat Lam has been satisfied with what he has seen so far from his budding new No10.
"Remember he is 19 years old, he has just had two games and they were contrasting. Bath, it was front foot, everything going well. Then he played a game under pressure and it is fair to say he would have got more learnings out of that game last weekend.
"The thing I was really pleased with, in his one on one, they come with their learnings, the things they have done well and he was spot on. He pretty much had our notes. That is what you want, you make notes about a player to be able to give him feedback on and he already had that.
"I have also seen in this week's training just the lift in his communication and his understanding of control because as we said to him playing ten is different from playing wing and full-back. Wing and full-back you are in and out of the game whereas at 10 it's not about what you do as an individual like at full-back or wing, it's more about what you do to control the game.
"Him and Andy (Uren, scrum-half) haven't had much time together but Ioan in that position I thought he did extremely well and he is growing in there. This is class. What Ioan is getting there is hugely beneficial."
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Latest Comments
Nah, that just needs some more variation. Chip kicks, grubber stabs, all those. Will Jordan showed a pretty good reason why the rush was bad for his link up with BB.
If you have an overlap on a rush defense, they naturally cover out and out and leave a huge gap near the ruck.
It also helps if both teams play the same rules. ARs set the offside line 1m past where the last mans feet were😅
Go to commentsYeah nar, should work for sure. I was just asking why would you do it that way?
It could be achieved by outsourcing all your IP and players to New Zealand, Japan, and America, with a big Super competition between those countries raking it in with all of Australia's best talent to help them at a club level. When there is enough of a following and players coming through internally, and from other international countries (starting out like Australia/without a pro scene), for these high profile clubs to compete without a heavy australian base, then RA could use all the money they'd saved over the decades to turn things around at home and fund 4 super sides of their own that would be good enough to compete.
That sounds like a great model to reset the game in Aus. Take a couple of decades to invest in youth and community networks before trying to become professional again. I just suggest most aussies would be a bit more optimistic they can make it work without the two decades without any pro club rugby bit.
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