By David Hibell
March 17 2003

James Forrester took full advantage of the conditions to score his second hat trick against us and he revealed after the match that his team mates have been telling him that he enjoys playing at the Mem so much he should come and sign for us!

The game started scrappily with handbags being thrown at the first scrum but then burst into life with Bristol caught out twice in the first ten minutes by Forrester, the first try was straight from a line out and he stood David Rees up before swerving round him to race in down the left touch line, Mercier adding the extras from the touch line. 

Gloucester were doing all the running at this stage and threatened again when a chip through from Mercier into the 22 took an awkward bounce back over the full back which Mercier was able to deflect inside, fortunately this was fielded by Rees who cleared the ball to touch.   

The lineouts were proving to be one area where Gloucester were struggling and it was not until the fourth one that they managed to hit their man, the ball was fed right then to the left where Gloucester had a huge overlap Forrester didn't need it showing his strength as well as his speed as he touched down on the left again.

Eight minutes gone and fourteen points down is looked like it was going to be a long day, even more so when Daryl Gibson who had taken a knock early on had to leave the field on 13 minutes to be replaced by Shane Drahm who moved to fly half with Felipe Contepomi moving to inside centre.  But this was the start of our best period of the match.

Drahm was pressed into action straight away with a huge clearance from a free kick that took play into the Gloucester 22.  Gloucester took a quick line out only for Henry Paul to knock on.  From this period of play Lee Best took the ball on, he fed Drahm who fed Beattie and Bristol were awarded a penalty but Contepomi's attempt drifted left and struck the outside of the upright.

Drahm fielded the quickly taken restart in the Bristol 22 and his return kick was caught in touch, Bristol lost the lineout but the ball was chipped to Phil Christophers who moved back infield and another penalty was awarded to Bristol as Gloucester strayed offside, this time Contepomi made no mistake.

A further period of sustained Bristol pressure was rewarded with another penalty and again Felipe slotted the kick, as the half hour mark approached Gloucester had soaked up a lot of the punishment and all Bristol had to show for it was six points.  Once again Gloucester attacked, a line out was thrown long and Hazell made the first of a number of breaks, he was penalised for holding on close to the try line, the ball was cleared to one of the Gloucester backs (Delport?) who made a weaving run back to the Bristol 22 and was stopped short by a huge tackle by Matt Salter who was putting in a huge amount of work around the park.

Hazell was not to be denied for long and soon joined his back row colleague Forrester onto the score sheet with a run down the right flank although Mercier missed this conversion.

Peter Thorburn remarked that we were missing important tackles and the try scorers so far had all beaten several players on their way to the line.

Shortly after the half hour Phil Christophers showed why he earned his call up into the England squad with an electrifying run from the left wing, cutting infield and scoring close to the posts with Felipe adding the two points, thirty seven minutes and 13-19, it looked like we could claw our way back into this.  Mike Lipman made a run down the right wing showing it wasn't just Gloucester who have a mobile back row and another chance looked on but when the ball came back inside to Shane Drahm he knocked it on.

The unfortunate Hazell had to leave the pitch as he suffered ligament damage and was replaced by Junior Paramore, he was announced as Ed Pearce much to the amusement of Ed Pearce and the Gloucester supporters near the old scoreboard as he jogged round that corner of the pitch.

It didn't take long for Forrester to complete his hat trick this time scoring down the right wing, Mercier again converting.  From the restart and a quickly taken line out Mercier had the opportunity to put Marcel Garvey into space but elected to kick and the ball rolled into touch.

Felipe was not having a good day with the boot, he missed two further penalties which could have kept us in touch but it was not to be and Bristol went into the last quarter trailing 13-26.  

Garath Archer and Jake Boer were sin binned, I missed what it was for, making notes for these match reports has it's effect on how much of a game you get to see, and the game had almost a complete set of events from Bristol Gloucester derby matches, with just an unusual try from David Rees to complete it.

Alas he was denied twice in quick succession, once in the left corner where Garvey put in a try saving tackle to be rewarded with some aggressive rucking and again shortly after a Drahm penalty when the ball was hacked on and though Rees looked to have grounded the ball a five yard scrum was given.

Gloucester took the scrum against the head and cleared the ball with the game opening up as both teams looked to run the ball back.  Mercier popped up on one such attack and had a simple run in down the left wing for a try he converted to make it 16-33.

Bristol attacked straight from the restart but again could not penetrate Gloucesters defence.  in an attempt to shake things up a little Darren Crompton who has been playing with a bad shoulder for the last few weeks was replaced by Paul Johnston and we looked forward to seeing another 30 yard run in from the Zimbabwean prop but it was Garvey who was next to score.

Salter was sin binned for tackling a player in the air and Bristol were facing the last ten minutes a man down and twenty two points behind.  Ross Beattie was replaced by Rhys Oakley and Gloucester looked to make the extra man count.  Playing at pace the ball was shifted to the left wing, back across to the right and to the left again but in the act of going over to score they put a foot into touch.

Bristol ran it back and Sherridan nearly scored but was bought down just short of the try line, Gloucester were conceding penalties  under concerted Bristol pressure and it finally told as Drahm squeezed into the left corner, the quickly taken conversion attempt missed and that was the last scoring moment in the match which again netted over fifty points and upped the average tries scored with eight in all.

After the match Nigel Melville was gracious in victory, he acknowledged that Bristol have a lot of good runners and lots of good individual players, he said that Gloucester knew they would not be able to relax after the whirlwind start because of the dangerous counter attackers Bristol possessed.  

Dean Ryan acknowledged that Alex Brown and Garath Archer had certainly done their homework and the defence of the line outs was very good.  He said that Gloucester had not had an error free game, but that was incumbent in the way they were trying to play.

Peter Thorburn said that too many individuals had missed key tackles for Bristol and the structure in defence was suspect.

Several players worked extremely hard in defence and looked dangerous in attack despite the reorganisation in the backs when Daryl Gibson, Bristol's lynchpin, went off.  Vote for your man of the match in the poll.