After a frustrating first-half of the season, four bonus point wins on the bounce has provided the perfect platform for an assault back up the Premiership mountain. It’s going to be a long haul but whisper it quietly, the Bears are starting to build momentum.
With several winnable fixtures to come, a new found confidence flowing through the squad and a fired-up Siva Naulago on a one-man search and destroy mission, who knows what the table will look like come the end of February.
That said, the game on Saturday was classic Bears. A scintillating first-half, where pace and ambition combined to secure a high-octane bonus point after half an hour, with a frustrating second where ill discipline meant the squad was stretched to breaking point and had to dig deep to repel a moderate Falcons rearguard.
In the end it was a relatively comfortable victory with at least three more tries left on the butcher’s slab but the beefy Newcastle pack certainly asked questions in the set piece and no doubt the forwards’ coaches will be putting maul defence high up on the training menu as we look towards the visit of London Irish.
However, it was the standout performances of Tom Whiteley and the aforementioned Siva Naulago that will linger long in the memory.
As understudies go the former delivered a perfect audition for a leading role with an enthusiastic, energetic and exciting all court effort that augurs well for the period that we have without Harry Randall.
With a similar Jedi-like sense of where to find and exploit precious pockets of space he also demonstrated serious kicking ability by executing two things we rarely see at the Gate – hanging restarts and top spinning grubbers. Yet another gem polished by Pat Lam, and a player to get really, really excited about.
As for Naulago, has there been such an eye-wateringly physical performance in a Bristol winger’s shirt since the days of the legendary ‘chiropractor’ himself, Brian Lima?
In both attack and defence he looked almost superhuman and with the marvel that is Semi inside him we can surely expect more of the same in the future. Plenty to enjoy, plenty to work on and plenty of evidence to suggest that the Bears are back and firing!
