Small, small margins and big, big hearts. That’s what it took for the Bears to get their first Premiership win since late September and finally purge the painful memory of the 2021 semi-final defeat. In abject conditions and away from home it was a victory borne out of festive grit rather than Christmas cheer with a second-half rearguard action that dug deep. Really deep.
It wasn’t pretty but it was pulsating. The Bears set their stall out early with a rejuvenated Semi Radrada bulldozing through the midfield and bouncing the unfortunate Will Evans back to the home dressing room off his prodigious Fijian thigh bone. It was a nasty looking head injury and we all wish him a swift recovery but if any of the Quins fans had been expecting a walk over then this suggested otherwise.
From the get-go, the Bristol pack were immense, drawing strength from Joe Marler’s predictable antics rather than undermined by them. In the absence of Ellis Genge and Kyle Sinckler, the replacement front row stepped up with Max Lahiff swapping his chihuahuas for a Doberman spirit, Harry Thacker rampaging round the park like a man possessed and Yann Thomas neutralising Wilco Louw with the latent adrenaline of his 2(0) yard run-in try against Zebre the week previous.
Okay, the scrum folded at times but as a unit (including the subs who came on later) the front row set the agenda. The lineout, however, was majestic.
Away from the engine room there were moments of quality from both sets of backs that made the game more than just an arm wrestle and it was particularly poetic that Gabriel Ibitoye not only scored a great try on his old stamping ground, but also denied Danny Care one of his own with a heroic last ditch tackle.
However, as is often the way the final result came down to the smallest margin of all with the combined effort of AJ MacGinty and Tom Whiteley somehow felling Andre 'The Giant' Esterhuizen inches from the line with an incredible ‘tap tackle and snaffle’ that silenced the Stoop in the midst of their victory roar. Sometimes you make your own luck and in a season where there has been scant little we’ll take all we can get. Up the new year Bears!
The next episode of Bears Beyond the Gate will be out early in the New Year.
You can listen to Bears Beyond the Gate on all major podcast platforms including Apple, Spotify and Buzzsprout
