At the end of 2023, Pat Lam’s Great Celebrity Circus briefly left Bristol. Now the show is back with a bang. After a brief identity crisis, the Bears reinvented themselves on and off the field and led the way to the fifth round of the Premiership.
‘We used to listen to the theme song from The Greatest Showman,’ Tom Tainton, Bristol’s chief operating officer, told Mail Sport. ‘It really looked like a bear, didn’t it?’
It actually did. And perhaps it’s time for Bristol to bring back the hit Hugh Jackman movie classic. Because on the evidence of the first four rounds of the 2024-25 English club rugby season, it is Bristol who are putting on the Premiership’s greatest show. .
Last Saturday at Sandy Park in Exeter, the Rams scored 28 points in the final 14 minutes to overturn a 20-point deficit and complete a remarkable comeback. Hot wing Gabriel Ibitoye scored a hat-trick in nine minutes.
It encapsulates the courageous attacking approach that has now returned to Bristol’s DNA. With three wins and one loss so far this season (including four bonus points for each game), the Bears sit top of the table and host second-placed Saracens at Ashton Gate on Saturday.
Bristol are flying in the Gallagher Premiership, having won three of their first four games.
Director of rugby Pat Lam (pictured) has brought the Bears back to their free-wheeling best.
Bristol winger Gabriel Obitoye (pictured) scored a stunning nine-minute hat-trick last weekend.
‘Entertainment is absolutely fundamental to everything we do in Bristol,’ says Tainton. ‘We try to play a wide game with a team of young players. We want people to come to our games and see Bristol as a team that is successful and plays rugby the right way and a pioneer off the pitch.
‘One of Bristol Sport’s values is originality. When we discuss a new idea, we talk about whether it is unique or innovative. Is this something no one has ever done? Thank you Pat, because I couldn’t live up to that mantra if what we were providing on site was a kickfest.
‘We want people to watch and think, “Oh my gosh, this is really interesting.” We’re here to win trophies and we want to inspire our community through it.
‘But equally, it is our goal to grow the game by encouraging young people. Very important. If we wake up five years from now and are experiencing the same routine that rugby has always done, we have missed a huge opportunity.
‘I’d like to think we’re everyone’s second-favorite team because we’re trying to do things differently.’
Bristol achieved this with this campaign. Their adventurous approach is not necessarily new. But it was reborn a short time later around the turn of the year when rugby coach Lam, by his own admission, changed course. The Bears have been rewarded for getting back into form since March.
Bristol have become rugby followers’ ‘favorite second team’ for all their attacking talent.
They can cause problems from anywhere and scored the most tries in the league last season.
‘I got out of myself,’ confesses Lam. ‘It’s up to the coach how the team plays. The way I like to play is attacking. If it’s on, it’s on. I don’t want my team to feel fear. Having been at this club for a while and especially having lost the semi-final to Harlequins in 2021, look at the situation. I started wondering if we should play differently.
‘Over the last two years there have been a lot of statistics showing that if you kick more you can win more. We were fascinated by it.
‘I looked back at the game against Exeter last Christmas. It was terrible. We had a full house and the amount of kicks we did was ridiculous. In January we lost to Connacht and they played like us.
‘ That was the biggest disappointment. We simplified things and got back to doing what we do best: being fearless.’
Now I think we’re looking at Bristol 2.0. At the 2024 Six Nations break, Lam reset the machine. With the international action complete, the Bears came out and defeated eventual champion Northampton 62-8. There they had an incredible performance that only resulted in them missing out on a playoff spot.
‘I scored the most tries in the Premier League last season,’ said Lam. ‘But we only played well for half the season. This is huge when a team has the most attempts but is not the top scorer. That’s the kind of statistics I’m after.
‘I 100% wouldn’t be here if I didn’t believe we could win a trophy with a performance like this. Over the past two years, we have faced many challenges, but we have overcome them.
‘This is the path we will take. We are in a business that requires an element of entertainment. We get contacted by a lot of people who say they like the way we play. We want to win, but we want to do it in a fun way, which will also help our responsibility to grow the game.
Bristol have gone from strength to strength after missing out on the play-offs last season.
Lam believes his fearlessness will allow him to continue winning trophies.
‘Everyone at this club is confident in the way we play. Sometimes you have to try different things and that’s what we did. But that wasn’t us and it further strengthened our belief that this was the way to go.’
At the end of the year, Bristol’s poor results and departure from traditional management came to threaten Lam’s position.
Billionaire owner Steve Lansdown was not satisfied with the product. But after the Northampton game, all was rosy at Bristol Gardens.
This summer, Lam reorganized his squad. Now younger and smaller. Bristol have the ability to spend up to the Premiership’s salary cap but have chosen not to do so in order to become more financially secure. It was recognized that they could not depend on Lansdown’s money forever.
Bristol’s signings are closely linked to their style of play. Bristol’s squad includes fewer superstars than in previous seasons, but they are always interested in signing big names to put more bums in their seats. They have expressed interest in England fly-half Marcus Smith from Harlequins.
The Lamb’s men’s team had Olympic swimmer Adam Peaty visiting this week, bringing his winning spirit to the athletes. The two Bristol teams train alongside each other.
Bristol’s players and staff all eat together in our state-of-the-art training facilities, just a stone’s throw from Championship football team Bristol City’s base. Both clubs are under the banner of Bristol Sport Group, which is owned by Lansdown. Just a few weeks ago, Lamb dined with City manager Liam Manning.
All food served at our rugby base in Bristol is produced within an 8km radius. On the day Mail Sports visited, the menu included grilled cod fillet and oysters. Bristol’s players can relax in the team room’s hammocks, ping pong tables and pool tables. The club’s bold rugby and marketing strategy appears to be paying off.
Olympic champion Adam Peaty visited Bristol’s training ground earlier this week.
He showed off one of his Olympic gold medals and addressed the athletes at the state-of-the-art facility.
As the sport competes for its place in the British sporting scene, Bristol’s crowds are growing and attracting a younger, more diverse audience. In May they will play a Premiership match in Wales for the first time in another ‘unique’ idea. Bristol, who changed their name to Bears in 2018, have already sold 20,000 tickets for the game at Principality Stadium.
‘This could be a special showcase for the Premiership,’ said Tainton, who was inspired by Bristol’s direction of travel while visiting the US to watch Major League Soccer and Major League Baseball. ‘We want to give Bristol its biggest day in terms of entertainment. If a credible business idea comes to mind, we want to explore it. It may be overseas, but we haven’t run out of our own patches yet.’
Bristol are now firmly back on track and judging by the exciting season so far, the future looks set to be anything but boring. The show is set to continue on Saturday against Saracens with an exciting clash of playing styles. No matter what happens, Bristol can’t change any more.
