Bristol Bears finished strongly to comeback in the final quarter of the game and beat the Dragons 45-28 at Rodney Parade in their second pre-season game of the summer.
After losing 22-17 to Brive last weekend out in France, a brace of tries from Henry Purdy in the final five minutes of match over the bridge in Wales saw the Premiership side pull away to secure victory in a hard-fought contest which will have taught both sides’ directors of rugby plenty of things.
Bristol took the lead inside the opening couple of minutes with the first of a duo of powerful driving maul tries. Hooker Bryan Byrne was the man to touch the ball down with Callum Sheedy converting.
READ MORE: Dragons v Bristol Bears LIVE: Reaction from pre-season win at Rodney Parade
But the Dragons, sporting six of their new summer signings in Angus O’Brien, Sio Tomkinson, JJ Hanrahan, Rhodri Jones, Bradley Roberts and Sean Lonsdale, hit back with fly-half Hanrahan running onto a tip pass from centre Tomkinson before freeing full-back O-Brien to level the scores. Talk about making an impact on your club debuts.
Bristol then lost John Hawkins, playing at blindside flanker tonight, to a yellow card for cynically slowing the ball down with the Dragons on the rampage again, but the visitors rode their luck while playing with 14 men and retook the lead after Sheedy threaded a superb grubber through for Rich Lane to gather and score.
The see-saw match soon tipped again, with sensational handling from Dragons' backline cutting open the Bristol defence twice in five minutes to score through number eight Ollie Griffiths and then former Exeter man Lonsdale.
Bristol closed the gap to two points at the break after a fine finish from James Williams, and could have even gone in ahead having driven over the try line from a lineout in the final seconds of the first half only to be held up.
At half time Bears director of rugby Pat Lam made a raft of changes including a switch of half backs, bringing on AJ MacGinty for his debut alongside Harry Randall, with Sheedy and the impressive Tom Whiteley giving way.
However it was the Dragons who came out stronger, with a debut try from hooker Bradley Roberts, converted by Hanrahan for 28-19, which is how it stayed until the hour mark when Will Capon was at the bottom of a powerful driving maul from a lineout. MacGinty’s conversion attempt struck the upright to leave the score at 28-24.
But with six minutes left on the clock the Bears exploded into life, scoring first through Randall who sniped down the blindside before bravely sliding head first into a set of legs to touchdown.
In the final moments Bristol sucked up the pressure from their hosts who threw one last role of the dice, holding out for a dozen phases of attack from the Dragons before replacement winger Purdy spotted his opportunity to intercept and put his foot down to impressively accelerate away from the covering defenders and score from 80m out.
Ninety seconds later Purdy was under the posts again after another long-range effort that started in his own half, speeding away down the touchline before kicking, hacking on the ball and regathering to add some gloss to the score line.
Bristol now move onto the Scarlets next weekend in their third and final pre-season game of the summer before facing Bath Rugby on September 9 in the Premiership curtain raiser.
Dragons: 15 Angus O’Brien, 14 Rio Dyer, 13 Sio Tomkinson, 12 Jack Dixon, 11 Jared Rosser, 10 JJ Hanrahan, 9 Rhodri Williams; 1 Rhodri Jones, 2 Bradley Roberts, 3 Chris Coleman, 4 Huw Taylor, 5 Sean Lonsdale, 6 Harri Keddie (c), 7 Lennon Greggains, 8 Ollie Griffiths
Replacements: 16 Elliot Dee, 17 Rob Evans, 18 Lloyd Fairbrother, 19 George Nott, 20 Ross Moriarty, 21 Lewis Jones, 22 Will Reed, 23 Max Clark, 24 Jordan Williams, 25 Josh Reynolds, 26 James Benjamin, 27 David Richards
Bristol Bears : 15. Luke Morahan, 14. Jack Bates, 13. Joe Jenkins, 12. James Williams, 11. Rich Lane, 10. Callum Sheedy, 9. Tom Whiteley; 1. Jake Woolmore, 2. Bryan Byrne, 3. Jonathan Benz-Salomon, 4. Morgan Eames, 5. Joe Owen, 6. John Hawkins, 7. Jake Heenan (c), 8. Magnus Bradbury.
Replacements: Jake Kerr, Will Capon, Yann Thomas, George Kloska, Max Lahiff, Ed Holmes, Dan Thomas, Sam Lewis, Harry Randall, Andy Uren, AJ MacGinty, Henry Purdy, Ioan Lloyd.
Referee : Adam Jones
Attendance : 4,491
