By Jake
January 12 2005

It was a windy day out Old Deer park that saw the Bristol team breeze through London Welsh to comfortably pick up a bonus point. Whilst scrappy in the later stages the shoguns managed to shake off any ring rust that may have set in over the christmas break. After a few minutes of possession chaning hands in the middle of the
piece a grubber kick by Welsh went awry and bounced into the waiting
hands of Ollie Hodge. The Bristol line then worked the ball out to Jason
Strange who launched a long kick with the wind down into the London
Welsh corner. Welsh gave away a free kick at the lineout which Bristol
promptly worked through the back row for Joe El Abd to cross the line and
post a score on his return from surgery. Jason slotted the conversion
in what was an awfully strong crosswind.

London Welsh chased the kickoff well and put pressure on Bristol in
their own 22 finally winning a penalty right in front of the posts which
was duly converted into three points. Bristol responded by taking play
right back into the Welsh 22 and when a clearance kick was charged down
Alex Clark was unfortunately left trying to outpace a centre to touch
down.

The next score came from a series of lineouts on the Welsh 5 yard line.
Welsh were clearly missing the commanding presence of Tim Collier in
the lineout and Bristol were placing the line under enourmous pressure.
After a series of infringements with bristol taking the lineout each
time the ball was finally worked along the back line for Bernardo
Stortoni to cross the line and continue his scoring ways.

Some general end to end play followed with some rugby tennis being
played by the two sides kickers. During this period Marco got to display
that electrifying pace of his briefly and it was clear he was faster
than his Welsh counterpart, a fact that would be critical a little furthur
into the game. After a sliced kick to touch by LW a Bristol were able
to work the ball through the line once again with Marsden showing a
little bit of magic to give the ball to Bernardo for his second score.
Unfortunately in the process of scoring Bernardo seemed to have injured
his knee, This led to Adam Billig coming on to the wing with Marsden
switching to fullback.

Welsh Rallied a little after this and took play down into the Bristol
half and camped in the Bristol 22 for a while. A period of sustained
pressure led to Darren Crompton being shown yellow, Dave Hilton coming on
when the scrum demanded it. Unfortunately for Welsh they were unable
to make the numbers advantage amount to anything and the whilst
possession was turned over a few times the play largely stayed in the centre of
the field. Eventually Billig made a break and popped the ball out when
tackled which was shifted out wide into the hands of Rob Higgit. Rob
continued to display that he only knows how to go straight forwards,
regardless of how many defenders there seem to be in the way, to put the
ball down over the line and secure the bonus point.

Then just before half time that pace of Marcos really showed. taking
the ball in the Shoguns dead ball zone Marco ran it out to the 22 before
offloading to Marsden who sprinted off down the wing. Just before
being tackled Sean made a very clever kick back infield for Marco, who had
been running in support, to chase. He then sprinted past two London
Welsh defenders leaving them for dead to tocuh the ball down notching up
Bristols 5th try in the first half and definately leaving behind a
contender for try of the season.

Joe went off at half time to be replaced by the returning Craig Short
making his 150th appearance in the colours of Bristol. London Welsh
came out ready to try and regain some pride and momentum. Applying
pressure for an extended period it looked like they were really defneding
strongly when Billig was held up over the line. Bristol really made some
sharp, incisive, runs during this period but these were punctuated by
poor execution with some sloppy final passes. However one such pass
looked like it had gone badly wrong when Marco managed to pick it up and
weave his way past the defenders to cross the line for his second.

a Raft of replacements followed with Saul, Ed Pearce, Strange, Blake
and Crompton all going off to be replaced by Hilton, Neil Clark, Chris
Morgan and new boys Mark Woodrow and Hentie Martens. Hentie Martens
looked sharp sniping around the scrum and Woodrow also looked to be in form
especially when he slotted a fine kick in the difficult wind. The
reason for the kick was because Craig Short, taking a good ball that had
been worked from deep within Bristol own half, had crossed the line to
score on his return to Bristol.

Bristol won comfotably with 7 tries, four of them converted, whereas
Welsh could only managed a penalty. Welsh played to the end, however,
and all credit to them they never gave up the fight. Bristols
performance became scrappy in the second half and Martin Haag clearly wasn't
impressed with the forwards performance. Possibly we were spoilt by the
performance against Wasps but having seen the team perform at that level
we tend to begin to expect it each game.

Bristol return to the top of ND1 after having been displaced by
Plymouth who, incidentally, did us the favour of beating Exeter in a winning
bonusless match. With the top of the table remaining a purely west
country affair it would be prudent of the premier league boys to take note.
The South West is coming - Don't stand in our way.