It’s really hard to know what to say about the defeat to Saracens on Saturday. On balance, it was an excellent performance from the Bears – the set piece was rock solid, the attack looked dangerous and with six minutes to go they were leading by 11 points and relatively comfortable – but somehow, excruciatingly, they conspired to lose and lets be clear, it was lost by Bristol rather than won by Saracens.
Yes, the league leaders had to score twice to nudge ahead, and whilst they were given the chance to do that, you could also argue they shouldn’t have been close enough to make those tries significant in the first place. However, the fact remains that when Bristol’s overall performance demanded composure and focus to deliver the right result, discipline and decision-making went missing, and the inability to game manage the last ninety seconds cost them dearly.
"Thinking clearly under pressure" is a popular phrase linked to England’s World Cup victory nearly 20 years ago. As I assume that it can be coached, it is therefore a process as well as an outcome, famously personified by the lead up to and the execution of Jonny Wilkinson’s momentous last-gasp drop kick. On Saturday, when the same sort of thinking was required, albeit in a different context, Bristol came up short. The question is why then, and more worryingly, why so often?
Is this the result of deficiencies on the training ground or is the result of random one-off moments that are hard to rationalise? It’s very hard to tell but despite the actions of the last few horrible few minutes, I think that if Bristol had been clearer and more clinical in certain parts of their play in the first half then they may well have been further enough ahead in the second to render those mistakes at the death irrelevant.
Roll or not roll, kick or not kick, edge the offside line or stay behind it. Rugby is a game of constant boundary pushing and decision making but sometimes you need to reign back and play the percentages when the situation demands it. I don’t believe that one single person should be thrown under the bus when the whole thing goes south because every individual decision whether good, bad or otherwise leads to a collective whole, but clearly it is an issue that the whole squad need to address.
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