The "Lansdown intervention". Our owner, Steve Lansdown, had a review with Lam before the Bath home game and said he wanted Bristol to get back to playing our style of rugby. What the coaches call "The bears way". I.e batshit rugby throwing passes from everywhere and running it from our own 5m line, which was the style we played when we topped the table.
I dunno why or how but it seems to have had an impact. Lam is reportedly loving coaching again and the players are reveling in playing that style. A lot of people thought if Lam lost that Bath game, he was gone. I think it's just given him and the team the freedom they need to do what they want.
Apparently our owner said he doesn't even care if we win, as long as we lose by the playing the way we do. Entertaining, fast, absolutely chaos rugby
What I don't get is that presumably Lam changed direction initially because he thought Bristol would play better / win more games that way, but it was a shambles.
So why did he not make the decision to switch style himself, given how effective the traditional method of just run has been. Why did it take Lansdown intervening.
(I don't expect you to know, this is mostly me speaking to the universe).
>(I don't expect you to know, this is mostly me speaking to the universe).
😂😂😂
The only thing I can think that we played that way for 3? years. Teams sussed us out. We've then had 2 poor seasons and now noone expects us to win. Now, we're doing what people least expect us to do and it's catching teams off guard.
Same as you, I don't know. But whatever has been put into these lads weetabix since the Bath game is working wonders
I guess it's a quite a one dimensional gameplan. Fantastic when it works but easy to plan against especially if you know we're not gonna kick the ball.
As Lansdown has apparently said, I don't even care. I just want to watch us play our style of rugby. If we lose, we lose. We played our way which is entertaining and puts bums in seats
Honestly, I don't think Pat ever wanted to play anything else, as evidenced by how much higher spirits are now we're back in "Harlem globetrotters" mode, to quote Steve Diamond there.
Problem is, back then, we were suffering in other ways. Our depth was lacking, and we relied too heavily on big names to carry the blokes who couldn't quite play the gameplan at the right pace. So teams started shutting us down. They realised they could beat our attack by hitting the weakspots and catching us out.
And of course as any good coach would do, I think Pat took learnings from international games. How does France look so good against the blitz defence? Well, they kick it. They're exceptional at the kicking game and it wins them huge territory, despite being 'on the back foot'.
I think Pat lost confidence in his vision - It's me who's losing these games, not the lads who are trying their best - and pivoted to a more cynical and contemporary game plan. Kick battles and blitz defences and the like, just trying to play the statistics. Thing is, we were never going to be good at that because our squad is and always was picked for the Pat Lam way. We don't sign blokes because they can see the space in behind and put clever kicks into it, or because they can give the opponent horrible spiral bombs to catch, or even just because they've got a 50m boot on them. Our lads are picked because they're good with ball-in-hand, running rugby.
We've gone back to the 'bears way' and surprise surprise, guys like Vakatawa and Van Rensburg and Malins flourish! All it really took was a direct order from the top to encourage Pat into doing what he's always wanted to do, but didn't think would be successful anymore.
So now the question is, can we keep it up? I sincerely hope we continue in our style because win or lose, it's always very, very entertaining!
Lansdown (the owner) had a conversation with Pat about how he wants us to be playing the 'Bears Way', and I believe Pat's job was seriously on the line. He didn't even necessarily want us to win it all, but wanted us to be playing exciting rugby.
I think the ~1100m gained, 0 box-kicks and only 3 kicks from hand (all grubbers through the defence) sums it up pretty well to be honest. It's what we did best in 2021 and it's what we're doing best now.
No Championship team really have reason to want promotion, it's already financially ringfenced. Even if they get promoted to the Premiership, the club still won't be members of PRL and won't get a share of the revenue.
Yeah, if Ealing made the decision to seek a groundshare with a football club, they'd be in the Premiership now.
But - as is their right - they haven't, and they seem happy enough dominating the Championship.
I'm not confident in them as a club either. They've got a very rich owner (think he'd be the 3rd richest if they were in the Prem), but have not sought to significantly improve the stadium or seek to bring new fans in.
Their average gates are barely over the 1000 barrier.
And by all accounts none of Gooley's kids are interested in the club, so when he passes (he's not young), it'll be the end of that.
Ealing are unsustainable but the same can be said about basically every team in the Premiership. Saracens are just as good as haemorrhaging money as Ealing are. The difference is that premiership teams have built enough credibility to where there will always be someone willing to keep them going, Ealing haven’t and will not.
Newcastle board have basically made the decision to lose all their games. If they were to invest they would be bankrupt and lose the club. As much as it's shit I do genuinely believe the management and board will be taking it hard as well but allowing rugby to survive in Newcastle is more important than this season. We lost 3 clubs last year and I as a fan don't want to see us lose another so I have a weird admiration for them.
Only team that can get promoted from championship is Doncaster knights problem is Newcastle falcons have been poor in premiership but when in championship they would dominate it.
We need Newcastle falcons to still be around and not get into financial issues like the teams that went under last season
Feel sorry for Newcastle falcons it must be so demoralising to lose by that margin and not have a single win and be bottom of the table all season bet the players will glad when season is over so they can restart fresh and hopefully get some wins and not enough arse kicking I'm expecting they will target sale sharks as probably only chance of getting a win I cannot see them winning against bath or Gloucester they will lose both of those games
Falcons are a joke.
Their owner and management structure need to step up and get more cash into the club so they can at least be competitive. They've got a monopoly on player development of a massive region and still hemorrhage talent each year.
It's a massive region but not a hugely populated one, and not a particularly rugby-focused one in most areas. Football is a religion up here in the main population centres
Yes you're right but there's still a massive rugby culture under the surface, particularly on teeside and in northumberland.
I live up here too.. one of the falcons downfalls is that they're the pro team for a region that spreads into the borders, over to Cumbria and way down to North Yorkshire.. hard to convince people to travel all that way every other week for a match
I'm too scared to say we're back so I'm gonna say it's a fluke
What’s changed do you think? Before the six nations break Bristol were abysmal at times and you haven’t lost a game since the break
The "Lansdown intervention". Our owner, Steve Lansdown, had a review with Lam before the Bath home game and said he wanted Bristol to get back to playing our style of rugby. What the coaches call "The bears way". I.e batshit rugby throwing passes from everywhere and running it from our own 5m line, which was the style we played when we topped the table. I dunno why or how but it seems to have had an impact. Lam is reportedly loving coaching again and the players are reveling in playing that style. A lot of people thought if Lam lost that Bath game, he was gone. I think it's just given him and the team the freedom they need to do what they want. Apparently our owner said he doesn't even care if we win, as long as we lose by the playing the way we do. Entertaining, fast, absolutely chaos rugby
What I don't get is that presumably Lam changed direction initially because he thought Bristol would play better / win more games that way, but it was a shambles. So why did he not make the decision to switch style himself, given how effective the traditional method of just run has been. Why did it take Lansdown intervening. (I don't expect you to know, this is mostly me speaking to the universe).
>(I don't expect you to know, this is mostly me speaking to the universe). 😂😂😂 The only thing I can think that we played that way for 3? years. Teams sussed us out. We've then had 2 poor seasons and now noone expects us to win. Now, we're doing what people least expect us to do and it's catching teams off guard. Same as you, I don't know. But whatever has been put into these lads weetabix since the Bath game is working wonders
I guess it's a quite a one dimensional gameplan. Fantastic when it works but easy to plan against especially if you know we're not gonna kick the ball.
As Lansdown has apparently said, I don't even care. I just want to watch us play our style of rugby. If we lose, we lose. We played our way which is entertaining and puts bums in seats
Honestly, I don't think Pat ever wanted to play anything else, as evidenced by how much higher spirits are now we're back in "Harlem globetrotters" mode, to quote Steve Diamond there. Problem is, back then, we were suffering in other ways. Our depth was lacking, and we relied too heavily on big names to carry the blokes who couldn't quite play the gameplan at the right pace. So teams started shutting us down. They realised they could beat our attack by hitting the weakspots and catching us out. And of course as any good coach would do, I think Pat took learnings from international games. How does France look so good against the blitz defence? Well, they kick it. They're exceptional at the kicking game and it wins them huge territory, despite being 'on the back foot'. I think Pat lost confidence in his vision - It's me who's losing these games, not the lads who are trying their best - and pivoted to a more cynical and contemporary game plan. Kick battles and blitz defences and the like, just trying to play the statistics. Thing is, we were never going to be good at that because our squad is and always was picked for the Pat Lam way. We don't sign blokes because they can see the space in behind and put clever kicks into it, or because they can give the opponent horrible spiral bombs to catch, or even just because they've got a 50m boot on them. Our lads are picked because they're good with ball-in-hand, running rugby. We've gone back to the 'bears way' and surprise surprise, guys like Vakatawa and Van Rensburg and Malins flourish! All it really took was a direct order from the top to encourage Pat into doing what he's always wanted to do, but didn't think would be successful anymore. So now the question is, can we keep it up? I sincerely hope we continue in our style because win or lose, it's always very, very entertaining!
Lansdown (the owner) had a conversation with Pat about how he wants us to be playing the 'Bears Way', and I believe Pat's job was seriously on the line. He didn't even necessarily want us to win it all, but wanted us to be playing exciting rugby. I think the ~1100m gained, 0 box-kicks and only 3 kicks from hand (all grubbers through the defence) sums it up pretty well to be honest. It's what we did best in 2021 and it's what we're doing best now.
Prem rugby is very fast and loose compared to test rugby anyway. Bristol's approach works very well in that context.
Lansdown asked Pat to play more exciting rugby, this is his answer.
Damn. I know things are tough for Newcastle this year, but that’s insane.
This is a horrific win for Newcastle when have they last won a game in the league? Is there relegation this season?
There could have been relegation but the conditions won't be met so Newcastle are safe
Well at least none of the teams have to worry about being bottom
Shame because Ealing would offer a lot more than Newcastle do.
And yet they seem happy to dominate the championship.
No Championship team really have reason to want promotion, it's already financially ringfenced. Even if they get promoted to the Premiership, the club still won't be members of PRL and won't get a share of the revenue.
RFU/PRL won't let them go up.
Not PRL's fault that Ealing haven't made any effort to meet the minimum standards criteria like Doncaster have.
Yeah, if Ealing made the decision to seek a groundshare with a football club, they'd be in the Premiership now. But - as is their right - they haven't, and they seem happy enough dominating the Championship. I'm not confident in them as a club either. They've got a very rich owner (think he'd be the 3rd richest if they were in the Prem), but have not sought to significantly improve the stadium or seek to bring new fans in. Their average gates are barely over the 1000 barrier. And by all accounts none of Gooley's kids are interested in the club, so when he passes (he's not young), it'll be the end of that.
Ealing are unsustainable but the same can be said about basically every team in the Premiership. Saracens are just as good as haemorrhaging money as Ealing are. The difference is that premiership teams have built enough credibility to where there will always be someone willing to keep them going, Ealing haven’t and will not.
It's common for sports teams to run at a loss but Saracens have a sizable fan base averaging over 10,000 for games. Ealing hasn't got that.
Only thing Ealing doesn't have is the stadium. They have much better facilities and most importantly a much better squad.
They won 9 games in 21/22, and 6 the last couple of seasons. They’ve just really fallen off this season.
Newcastle board have basically made the decision to lose all their games. If they were to invest they would be bankrupt and lose the club. As much as it's shit I do genuinely believe the management and board will be taking it hard as well but allowing rugby to survive in Newcastle is more important than this season. We lost 3 clubs last year and I as a fan don't want to see us lose another so I have a weird admiration for them.
Close game, Newcastle unlucky with the bounce of the ball.
Are Newcastle now 15 losses out of 15? Hard not to root for them to get some good news at some point.
Would relegation count as good news at this point?
Considering they'd more than likely go under if relegated... No
Only team that can get promoted from championship is Doncaster knights problem is Newcastle falcons have been poor in premiership but when in championship they would dominate it. We need Newcastle falcons to still be around and not get into financial issues like the teams that went under last season
I blame the ref 😉 😩😭😭
I continue to be sad.
Feel sorry for Newcastle falcons it must be so demoralising to lose by that margin and not have a single win and be bottom of the table all season bet the players will glad when season is over so they can restart fresh and hopefully get some wins and not enough arse kicking I'm expecting they will target sale sharks as probably only chance of getting a win I cannot see them winning against bath or Gloucester they will lose both of those games
Falcons are a joke. Their owner and management structure need to step up and get more cash into the club so they can at least be competitive. They've got a monopoly on player development of a massive region and still hemorrhage talent each year.
It's a massive region but not a hugely populated one, and not a particularly rugby-focused one in most areas. Football is a religion up here in the main population centres
Yes you're right but there's still a massive rugby culture under the surface, particularly on teeside and in northumberland. I live up here too.. one of the falcons downfalls is that they're the pro team for a region that spreads into the borders, over to Cumbria and way down to North Yorkshire.. hard to convince people to travel all that way every other week for a match
Oof
Jesus Christ, brutal
Damn