Bristol Bears have had some very good moments this season, and have put on some outstanding performances which have seen them go from being newly-promoted to the Premiership in 2018 to potential top four finishers in 2020, sealing a place in the play-offs.
This try, scored in the West Country derby against Bath, shows you just how good they have been. It may have been scored by Samoa winger Alapati Leiua, but it also involved other members of the team doing good work to get the ball to him.
The situation starts when the ball comes out of a breakdown situation on the far side of the pitch. The ball comes to Bristol in the middle of the pitch, and you can see how the player in possession immediately looks as if he wants to pass to one of the four players to his left.
This then brings the Bath line out towards those players, as they look to make the interception. However, this is what Bristol want to happen. By moving the defensive line out, Bristol can access the space behind it.
Here, you can see how the dummy pass that we saw in the first image has allowed Bristol to attack into that space. Bath have spread apart to try and lessen the space for the Bears, but this is where Bristol get really clever. Rather than looking to pass the ball out to the wing, and risking it being intercepted along the way, they kick it directly out to there. That means that the ball reaches the space much more quickly, and before Bath can organise themselves on that side of the pitch.
The kick is accurate, and Leiua is therefore able to gather it and go over the try line for the score, and you can see how much space he has to do this. This is not a complicated try to analyse, but the thing that we have pointed out is that it wouldn’t have come about without the work done in the middle, removing the defence and getting the ball in behind the Bath back line. This gave Bristol the space to operate as they did, and Leuia was the beneficiary of this.
