Bears hit 50 to leave Gloucester in a heap

BRISTOL’S run of five defeats came to an end with a complete dismantling of a poor Gloucester side, which crashed to their sixth consecutive Premiership loss.

- ROGER PANTING

After 50 minutes, impressive Bristol led 41-7 before carelessly allowing the visitors to score three tries in 15 minutes to provide an inaccurate final score.

Such was the paucity of Gloucester’s performance in that opening 50 minutes it was hard to assess the merit of Bears’ efforts who recorded the most points in a game against their opponents in 59 league fixtures.

Gloucester head coach George Skivington said: “We got a bonus point so it wasn’t an absolute car-crash but Bristol were outstanding and opened up our defence far too easily.

“From the outset we expected it to be fast and furious but Bristol were really sharp and we were chasing shadows. Once we changed what we were doing at kick-off we adapted, but that was by the second half. We got shocked with the intensity of them attacking from their own 22.”

He added: “We had Ruan Ackermann back and there’s Adam Hastings and Zach Mercer to come so there is light at the end of the tunnel.”