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Gallagher-Prime Minister
Bristol Director of Rugby Pat Lam was beaming with pride after his side opened their Prema campaign with an impressive 34-24 bonus point win at Sale.
The home side struck through Luke Cowan-Dickie’s cross and wing Tom O’Flaherty’s duel, but Bears duo Louis Rees-Zammit and Harry Randall scored twice before team-mate Tomas Gwilliam added a late fifth.
The result saw Bristol lay down an impressive marker in Salford and left Lam delighted.
The Bears boss said: “We know it’s so hard to come and win here, so I’m really pleased and proud of the lads.
“I’m pleased because they got good evidence of the work they put in in the pre-season and the things we’ve been working on.
“You can do all that, but you want proof – and the boys got it.”
Although scrum-half Randall earned man of the match accolades, Lam stressed the result was a collective effort.
He added: “I know Harry got man of the match but I look at the amount of work everyone has done to produce a team effort.
“You know how many times I talk about it and I don’t really care who scores the goals.
“What I see is the work that went before and we finished as a team.
“And our game is really based on working hard for each other offensively and defensively and certainly the guys worked really hard defensively.
“Sale put us under a lot of pressure and we managed to withstand them.”
Courtney Lawes, signed from the French club Shave made his debut for Sale in the summer and played 80 minutes in the back row.
It was his first appearance in Prem since he was in charge Northampton to the Twickenham title in 2024 and Sharks boss Alex Sanderson was pleased with the 37-year-old’s effort.
Sanderson said: “I thought he carried well and defensively he was strong – and that was eighty minutes for old legs.
“Courtney certainly hasn’t turned his attention to the pace and he’s probably one of many that we believe has more to come, there’s more to him.
“And that’s the most positive thing, there’s so much room for improvement.
“There is so much room for improvement for next week and we will come back on Tuesday and go again.”
Sanderson was left disappointed by his side’s inaccuracy with the ball, adding: “In the elements of the game we were dominant but the fundamentals let us down and it wasn’t the result we wanted to start with.
“There was wildly frustrating inaccuracy with the ball and poor discipline without it at times for me and the players. We just feel we gave them too many chances.”
