Bears win but find the honey has gone

THE battle of the under-achievers went the way of Bristol but, in a dramatic finale, their Heineken Champions Cup spot for next season was cruelly taken away from them by a resurgent Bath who climbed above Bears by defeating an under-strength Saracens at The Rec

- ROGER PANTING

Bristol director of rugby Pat Lam said: “I have not got a problem with what Saracens did. When you have done what they did you have earned the right to do it, so I have got no issue with Saracens.

“We would probably have done the same thing – we shouldn’t have been in that situation.”

At the start of the season both sides would have expected far better by at least challenging for a play-off spot but neither were remotely good enough as evidenced by the fact that Bristol came into this game on a losing run of four and Gloucester even worse with five.

So somebody had to break that sequence and Bristol deserved to do so as their pack were the better eight with livewire hooker Harry Thacker and hard-working skipper Steven Luatua at the forefront of their efforts.