Bristol Bears players return to pre-season in a little over two weeks' time and Pat Lam has revealed his squad face ‘one of the toughest’ summers of their lives.
After reaching the giddy heights of finishing top of the table in 2020/21, Bristol have badly under-performed in the last two seasons, finishing 10th and ninth in successive years to miss out on a place in the Heineken Champions Cup. When you have being a consistent Champions Cup team emblazoned on the wall of your £11.5m state-of-the-art training facility as a core identity of the club and having set out a blueprint to win domestic and European titles, those finishing positions come as a severe disappointment to fans who were given license to dream big.
While the unexpected reduction in the Premiership’s baseline £5m salary cap has curtailed Bristol director of rugby Lam’s initial plan to reach the summit of English rugby on the backs of superstar marquee players like Semi Radradra and Charles Piutau, the former Samoan international is now focusing on the elements he can control.
Let’s not forget Lam achieved the most notable highlight on his coaching CV - leading Connacht to lift the Pro12 title with a victory against big beast Leinster in the final in 2016 - without superstars or a big budget.
For Bristol to re-establish themselves as a top-four side they are going to have to forge a collective strength rather than rely on individual brilliance, although the likes of Max Malins, Ellis Genge and Kalaveti Ravouvou will still provide plenty of razzle-dazzle for the Premiership’s ‘Greatest Showman.’
The addition of former Newcastle head coach Dave Walder as the club’s backs and attack coach ahead of the new season is perhaps also a nod to change in ethos, with Lam acknowledging shortly after his appointment that Walder comes ‘having done a great job with limited resources’ at a less star-studded Falcons.
In terms of focusing on the controllables, for Lam that is going to start on June 19 with a summer of focus on discipline and thinking clearly under pressure having seen too many games lost from winning positions in the closing stages during 2022/23
Lam said: “It is probably going to be one of the toughest pre-seasons coming up because we need to sort out our discipline, our mental discipline because it has hurt us at key times.
“Everyone one makes mistakes, but with system mistakes, I blame myself for that.
“I am effectively going to approach this pre-season very differently [to the last couple of years which were about continuity with few players coming in or out], as if I am new to the club.
“When I came here the first time it was about changing the mindset, to do things very differently and we have got to things very differently to improve our discipline, not just players but staff as well. Everybody. We have just got to tighten everything up so ultimately we come out a much better, more disciplined club.”
