Bristol beat much-changed Bath to go third
Gallagher Premiership
Bristol (19) 36
Tries: Ibitoye, Lane, Oghre, Harding, Capon, Mata Cons: MacGinty 3
Bath (7) 14
Tries: Donoghue, Richards Cons: Donoghue 2
Bristol overcame their own ill-discipline and much-changed league leaders Bath to claim a 36-14 victory in a Premiership showpiece match at Cardiff's Principality Stadium.
Ciaran Donoghue opened the scoring for Bath but a trio of tries from Gabriel Ibitoye, Rich Lane and Gabriel Oghre gave the Bears a 19-7 lead at the break despite two yellow cards.
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Fitz Harding added Bristol's fourth try after the break before Ewan Richards pulled one back as the Bears were reduced to 13 men for a second time.
Yet, Will Capon and Viliame Mata's flourish in the closing minutes capped a victory against the table-toppers that moves Bristol above Sale to third in the table, by three points, with two matches of the season remaining.
Branded the 'Big Day Out', the match saw Bristol swap Ashton Gate for Wales' flagship international stadium with 51,095 tickets sold – just under twice the capacity of their 27,000 home ground.
With Bath already having cemented a home semi-final in the play-offs, head coach Johann van Graan fielded a fledgling team who will feel nonetheless disappointed to have come away with nothing.
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Bristol failed to convert three early visits to Bath's 22 into points, only to rapidly be reduced to 13 men.
Max Lahiff was first to be shown yellow for repeated infringements as Bath's forwards pushed for a try that was twice held up.
Joe Cokanasiga reacted fastest to a charged-down kick, bursting forward and passing to Donoghue to make it 7-0 to Bath, before Benhard Janse van Rensburg was also sent to the bin for tackling Richards in the air.
Bristol impressively survived the numerical disadvantage and, back at full tilt and at their fifth time of asking in Bath's red zone, Ibitoye scored his 11th Premiership try of the campaign to shift the momentum.
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Janse van Rensburg then fed Lane to cross in the corner and Oghre added their third before half-time from a driving maul to open a 12-point advantage.
Ibitoye drifted through Bath's line and Harding stretched over for the bonus-point score quickly after half-time, but Bath were far from down and out.
Replacement Will Jeanes – on his league debut - thought he had scored only for the try to be chalked off for a forward pass, while James Williams made a try-saving tackle to deny Austin Emens.
Richards then impressively closed the gap, throwing a dummy and ghosting behind two tacklers to dive under the posts.
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Bristol's indiscipline again almost cost them as Joe Batley – on his first appearance since November due to injury – was sent to the bin, quickly followed by Mata, reducing them again to 13.
Their defence held firm to hold Bath at bay during a crucial 12 minutes and with the clock running down they sealed the win in style.
Capon scored in a move that went from one end of the pitch to the other before Mata darted down the wing and dived over to help keep Bristol firmly in the play-off race.
'Five points is massive for us' - Lam reaction
Bristol director of rugby Pat Lam said:
"We can have a big day out but we need to perform and get the win. The five points is massive for us.
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[On the yellow cards] "The senior players have addressed it. They said we are happy with the win, happy we have beaten Bath, happy with the five points but we have got to stop giving away things for free. It has been a problem in a lot of our losses, discipline. It doesn't help so the players have already taken charge of that.
"It is never ideal for the 13 left. We have practiced with 14 men, not necessarily 13 and we probably need to do that a little bit more.
"We've set out a shoot-out on Friday between us and Sale. I think if we get the win there we still probably have to go to the last week determined, but it's a massive game on Friday."
Bath head of rugby Johann van Graan said:
"We left a few opportunities out there. In the 39th minute we believed we scored on the right hand side and then Bristol turn it over and they score from the scrum – that's a 14-point swing.
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"We could have capitalised better [with them] being down to 13 men and Austin being tackled into touch and then unfortunately Kepu [Tuipulotu] lost the ball in going for the try. The line break on 76 minutes – we score there, it's a one-score game with three minutes to go and they go the length of the field.
"No regrets, no excuses from our side, really proud of the 23-man effort. Learnt a lot about some of our players today in a Test match, hostile environment."
Bristol: Lane; Ravouvou, Janse van Rensburg, Williams, Ibitoye; MacGinty, Randall; Genge, Oghre, Lahiff; Caulfield, Batley, Luatua, Harding (c), Mata.
Replacements: Capon, Y Thomas, Kloska, Dun, Owen, Marmion, Naulago, S Grondona.
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Sin-bin: Lahiff (13 mins), Van Rensburg (18 mins), Batley (59 mins), Mata (61 mins)
Bath: De Glanville; Cokanasiga, Hennessey, Bailey, Emens; Donoghue, Shreuder; Van Wyk, Spandler, Griffin; Richards (c), Molony, Bayliss, Staddon, Green.
Replacements: Tuipulotu, Cordwell, Verden, Jeanes, Cowan, Carr-Smith, McConnochie, Reid.
Referee: Luke Pearce
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