Bristol Bears’ now departed defence coach Omar Mouneimne has identified four key reason’s the club’s defence failed to reach the levels it had the previous year.
Mouneimne has switched Ashton Gate for Sandy Park and Exeter Chiefs this summer having had mixed results at the Bears.
In his first full season at Bristol after moving from Worcester Warriors the club finished top of the table in the Gallagher Premiership, conceding just 42 tries during the league campaign.
But in 2021/22 the Bears came in a disappointing 10th after leaking 98 tries despite topping the league in ‘dominant’ tackles.
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Discussing what went wrong in terms of defence at Bristol, Mouneimne highlighted four key areas.
Speaking to The Rugby Paper, he said: “There are so many factors, rugby is not a scence where you can just say this or that.
“We tried some new things and just sometimes you get the tweaks wrong.
“I think we had a fair amount of injuries in pivotal positions, so it took its toll, we had more internationals away than we usually would, the loss of Siale [Piutau]... it all adds up.”
The defensive ‘tweaks’ are the most interesting piece of Mouneimne’s analysis as the rest was plain to see, although the impact of losing Harry Randall and Kyle Sinckler to England and Callum Sheedy to Wales during the Autumn internationals and Six Nations was hardly crippling to the defence.
Siale Piutau, the Bears' defensive leader in the backs before his departure to Japan, has certainly been a significant loss, and the disruption caused by a horror season of injuries was significant as Bristol were forced to chop and change throughout the team, but particularly at inside centre to further compound the loss of the former Tonga captain.
Since Piutau moved on in the summer, Piers O’Conor, Antoine Frisch, Sam Bedlow, Ioan Lloyd and Alapati Leiua all played in the 12 jersey as Bristol struggled for consistency on the field and in their selection.
The Bears are certainly a high-risk side who are liable to conceding interceptions and the style of their fully committed, seven-man looping attack plays means should a ball go to deck through a handling error - which happened all too often last season, there is no one home to clean up in defence.
But in 2020/21, the Bears found a sweet spot where the nature of the attack did not harm the defence, and the new, currently unnamed defence coach, will need to do the same again.
Lam said he is hoping to announce the club’s coaching structure ahead of the start of pre-season in July.
Meanwhile, Mouneimne, is looking forward to working towards getting Exeter back to the top of the table after the Chiefs finished seventh last season, costing defence coach Julian Salvi his job.
Mouneimne said: “I am more excited about this team than any team in a long, long time.
“I’m coming to a side with that level of excellence that has set the bar so high for so long and has done incredible things, a double that is undeniably brilliant.”
