Thread by @HuwGriffinRugby

BRISTOL BEARS DEEP DIVE: THE WORST GOOD TEAM IN RUGBY 🐻

Bristol’s stats for this season are crazy. The good ones are incredible, thrilling & record-breaking 🤩

The bad ones leave you with your head in your hands… Let’s use @OptaJonny to explain🧵

Bristol’s attacking statistics this season are nothing short of extraordinary 🤯

They set a new club record for a Premiership season with 95 scores, just one fewer than league leaders Bath 🥈

They scored on average 35 points/game & broke the record for try bonuses in a season!

Bristol have always been one of the most razzle dazzle teams in England but they’ve taken it to another level since Sean Marsden was promoted to head backs and attack skills coach last summer 🤝

So what characterises Bristol’s attacking approach under him? Well, it’s simple… 🧑‍🏫

In short: Bristol run absolutely everything 🏃

They exit their own 22 via carries a mental 46% of the time 🤪 9% more than any other club in the world

35% of their tries originate in their own half, again the most of any club in the world

But this isn’t just caution to the wind madness, there’s a logic to it 🤓

When defending high up the pitch, teams drop 2 or 3 players into the backfield to cover kicks 🪖

That means there is more space in the main defensive line compared to when they’re defending their own 22:

Let’s break down 🧑‍💻 the shape of their game even more:

Bears go WIDE 🚛
• 2nd in the world for wide movement
• 2nd for passes per game
• 3rd for attacking the openside
• 4th for playing beyond 1st & 2nd receiver
• 2nd lowest for tight movement
• 4th lowest for short passes

When Bristol get a chance to score they make it count ✅

They were 4th in the world for 22 entries per game and 2nd in the world for turning 22 entries into tries

It’s interesting that Marsden is called an ‘attacking SKILLS coach’ 🙌

Bristol have 28% tackle evasion - they are the best team in the world at evading tacklers 😶‍🌫️

Dodging defenders 1 on 1 is clearly a skill they have worked on and have now mastered 🧠

Bristol are also masters of getting the ball to their best players in dangerous (for the opposition) situations 🫨

Winger Gabriel Ibitoye finished 2nd in the league for tries scored with 13

Scrum-half Harry Randall finished top overall for try involvements with 18 in 16 games…

Elsewhere, their lineout operated at 91% and their scrum at 95% meaning they had a solid platform from which to launch their attacks 🧱

In the first half of the season the results spoke for themselves: 6 wins from their first 8 Premiership games propelling them to top 2 in the league 📈

But then things started to go wrong. A 0-38 home loss to Sale in R9 was the start of Bristol’s issues being brutally exposed 🫣

Bristol’s defence is somewhere between bad and non-existent 😬

They conceded 80 tries in the premiership, AKA a mean average 🧮 of 4.4 tries against per game

Only bottom club Newcastle conceded more in England whilst in the URC only Dragons conceded more

However you measure Bears’ defence, it’s just bad… 🙈

• 5th worst tackle success in the world
• 2nd worst for missed tackles leading to tries
• 3rd worst for recovering missed tackles
• most 22 entries against in the world
• more tries conceded per game than any Top14 team

A lot of this is brought on by the high risk nature of playing out of your own half ⚠️

If you make a mistake and lose the ball, the opposition doesn’t have far to go to get to your try line

Bristol conceded 30+ points 14 times across Premiership and Champions cup this season 🤦

The context to these stats is that rugby is in an era of attacks being on top and try scoring going through the roof

The prem is an extreme example of this 🫡 7 of the 20 most generous teams for 22 entires against hail from England

But Bristol take the cake in both ways 🍰

Following the Sale defeat, Bristol went on to win just 4 more Premiership games in their last 10, conceding at least 26 points in all but 1 match 🫠

They won just 1 Champions cup game - a narrow & controversial victory over Benetton at home 👀 - and failed to progress to the R16

Their season ended with a 50% senior win record: 10/18 in the Premiership & 1/4 in Europe 😕

However, their incredible 16 try bonus points out of a possible 18 ⚖️ got them 4th on the log despite having a the same wins & a worse points difference than Gloucester below them 🧐

It’ll be interesting to see if Bears’ approach changes next season 🤔

Generally, teams in any sport don’t tend to persist with the ‘you score 4 we’ll score 5’ approach for long 👎

BONUS: I asked Google about Bristol DoR’s approach to attack vs defence. Here’s what it said… 😝