Bristol’s comfortable 46-12 victory<\/a> against high-flying Northampton Saints on Saturday.<\/p>\nAfter Saints saw Edoardo Todaro receive an early 20-minute red card, Williams produced a terrific return to form, assisting full-back Tom Jordan for an easy run in with a quickfire pass before kicking a pinpoint 50-22 in the build-up to Bears’ fifth and final try of a rampant first half at Ashton Gate.<\/p>\n
Lam admitted he was impressed by Williams’ first Prem performance of the season after returning to a much-changed side in Bristol’s Prem Rugby Cup defeat at Exeter in an attempt to prove full fitness after suffering a pectoral injury and a broken hand last season.<\/p>\n
“It is pleasing, and he is like the glue [to this side],” Lam told BBC Radio Bristol.<\/p>\n
“We’re always going to have injuries, every team’s going to have it, but don’t worry about it when it happens. It’s all about the next game – getting everyone up to speed.”<\/p>\n
Despite his side’s comfortable victory against then second-placed Saints, who have since dropped to third in the Prem standings, Lam acknowledged frustration at allowing Northampton back into the game after racking up a 35-0 lead at half-time.<\/p>\n
The visitors scored two tries after the interval with a man light, outscoring Bristol by a point in the second 40 minutes, but Lam refused to accept the reason that his side lost the second half was because the match was effectively over as a contest.<\/p>\n
“It is an excuse – we were disappointed at the scoreline of that second half,” Lam added.<\/p>\n
“We have been giving teams too many soft entries on penalties. We gave a scrum penalty away, all that wasted energy, and then they score which was very annoying.<\/p>\n
“However, at 12 [points] they [Northampton] could have gone again, but the boys got control and we were working with the message as if we were 12-3 down.<\/p>\n
“We just missed a conversion to win the second half, so you can say that [Bristol took their foot of the gas], but I do not accept it, you’ve just got to be better.<\/p>\n
“But when I think how many times in that situation we have allowed a bonus point – to get five points, and to give them nothing, is really pleasing for us.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bristol Bears boss Pat Lam has labelled returning centre James Williams as “the glue” which he hopes will…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":606503,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8818],"tags":[381,748,393,4884,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-606502","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-bristol","8":"tag-bristol","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-england","11":"tag-great-britain","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115647700166009027","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606502","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=606502"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606502\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/606503"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=606502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=606502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=606502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}