24-11-2012By Flanker7
After arriving at a very wet and blustery Brickfields today with a real sense of anticipation of a bruising & well entertaining Westcountry derby with the hope PARFC could record a home victory against an indifferent Bristol Rugby team this season.
Albion went into todays game on the back of a home win against London Scottish, while Bristol Rugby came into the game after a good home win against Jersey. Bristol's away form this season has been below par for them and they have only record one away win at Doncaster Knights prior to todays game.
With the inclement weather appearing to be getting worse as the game progressed, Albion were playing against the wind and other elements first half, the game started very cagey with Bristol's Adrian Jarvis putting up the high ball deep into Albion territory as often as possible putting Albion's defence under tremendous pressure and on many occasions knocking on and surrendering possession back to Bristol.
After 8 minutes of the game Bristol took a deserved lead it came when Bristol opted to take a five metre scrum the ball passed through their backs hands enabling George Watkins to dive over in the corner, Adrian Jarvis missed the conversion in very difficult conditions under foot 5-0 to Bristol.
Albion were pinned back for long spells in the first half and just couldn't get a foothold in the game, with the conditions worsening by the minute, however, a mistake by Bristol enabled Albion to score from a Paul Roberts penalty 3-5, Albion's mistakes were becoming more evident and costly as Bristol choose to rack up a number of successful penalties in the 18/26/40 minutes of which for me, was a killer blow right on half time to take Bristol out into a 14-3 advantage. Bristol's dominance was such, that Jon Vickers was sin-binned 5 minutes before half time for a professional foul.
Albion attendance today was 1,358, very poor for a game of this magnitude when in the past 5,000 plus had attended, beside the weather being atrocious, England had a game with South Africa at HQ and many would have opted to stay in to observe this encounter.
With Albion playing with the elements in the second half, there was a lot of positivity of an Albion comeback, however, they would need to score first, and make the Bristol defence work far harder than the first disappointing 40 minutes.
Then came the most astonishing incident I have witnessed at The Brickfields, Sean Michael Stephen put in a big hit on his opposite number eight and took him into touch, Sean got back on his feet and tried to take the ball off Mitchel Eadie (quick throw in) who was having none of it then there was a lot of pushing between the 8's then all of a sudden we had a 30 man mass brawl break out which seemed to go on for an eternity as no one took control of the situation. This after a meeting of the referee and his assistant referee's in the middle of the field, led to both Mitchel Eadie and Sean Michael Stephen both being yellow carded and after another little hold up Albion's prop Jack Andrew receiving a straight red for throwing punches, this I'm sure will be viewed seriously by the RFU and have serious repercussions for both sides. There were numerous players for me, which on another day would have seen red from both sides.
I would have to say some of the decisions today were frustrating and in some instances bizarre, and clearly got through to some of the players, Albion struggled throughout to gain any forward momentum to their game, Bristol's tactics on the day were bettered suited to the conditions than Albion's.
Albion's lineout throughout the game was disfunctional and I can only recall turning one Bristol lineout over, and winning only one of our own, so being starved of possession and territory it was always going to be a difficult game to win. Right after the restart the game was put to bed as Bristol scored with Redford Pennycook going over after a good drive and Adrian Jarvis conversion 3-21. However, what pleased me, and many others whilst down to thirteen men Albion dug deep and started to get more into the game as the weather worsen and the rain blew relentlessly into the Bristol teams faces, and Bristol began to tire.
After a huge Albion up and under Bristol were defending their own line trying to prevent Albion from recording a try score, this to the teams credit didn't happen and after many changes to both sides Rhodri Mcatee finally got over the whitewash, to bring the score to 8-21 Paul Roberts missed the conversion.
Referee today was Ian Tempest, it will be interesting to see what the RFU thought of his handling of today's game, and his officials when reviewing this mass brawl, and the game in general.
My final conclusions on a very disappointing outcome for Albion, put this down to a bad day at the office and work harder at your set pieces as it won't get any easier at Newcastle Falcons on Friday night.
The elements today were appalling for both sides, IMHO Bristol seemed to adapt the better and came out on top, Albion will respond to this reversal and hopefully get back to winning ways again soon.