{"id":670229,"date":"2026-01-03T02:19:14","date_gmt":"2026-01-03T02:19:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/670229\/"},"modified":"2026-01-03T02:19:14","modified_gmt":"2026-01-03T02:19:14","slug":"five-takeaways-as-ellis-genge-inspired-bears-go-top","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/670229\/","title":{"rendered":"Five takeaways as Ellis Genge-inspired Bears go top"},"content":{"rendered":"

Following Bristol Bears\u2019 19-17 win over Sale Sharks at Ashton Gate, here are our five key takeaways from Friday night\u2019s blockbuster PREM clash.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The top line<\/p>\n

Kalaveti Ravouvou struck eight minutes from time to break Sale<\/a> hearts, win an absorbing encounter and send Bristol Bears<\/a> to the top of the Gallagher Prem<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A freezing night in the West Country saw the visitors control a hugely physical encounter until Rekeiti Ma\u2019asi-White was sin-binned 15 minutes from time.<\/p>\n

That setback, added to a right knee injury to the hugely influential Raffi Quirke, swung the pendulum towards Pat Lam\u2019s Bears and Ravouvou made it count in dramatic fashion with a sweet finish.<\/p>\n

It was the sixth successive league game in which the Fijian star has crossed the whitewash and it gave Bristol, inspired by England prop Ellis Genge<\/a>, their fourth successive Prem win.<\/p>\n

Genge completes medal hat-trick<\/p>\n

Genge continued his barnstorming season by picking up a Player of the Match medal for the third successive Bristol game.<\/p>\n

He did so after waging a fierce battle throughout with England team mate Tom Curry, Sale\u2019s nuggety back-rower and not a man to take a backwards step.<\/p>\n

The pair went at it hammer and tong throughout after Genge had demanded his team avenge last season\u2019s 38-0 home humiliation at the hands of these same Sharks.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe spoke about that before the game and I said to the boys \u2018it can\u2019t happen again\u2019,\u201d he said afterwards. \u201cI\u2019m a bit overwhelmed at the physicality, the emotion. The boys were fantastic. All of them could have got this medal.<\/p>\n

\u201cI said to them it should be an inherent trait of this club that we are able to knock it about and mix it with the big lumps. It\u2019s got to be part of our DNA.\u201d<\/p>\n

Triumph over adversity<\/p>\n

Bristol suffered so many injuries in the first weeks of the season it seemed they would struggle to fulfil their fixtures left alone win them.<\/p>\n

Yet here we are in the opening week of the New Year with Lam\u2019s team on top of the table after a sixth successive win and fourth straight in the league.<\/p>\n

PREM Rugby round nine: Predictions, teams, kick-off times, how to watch and referee appointments<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

Planet Rugby\u2019s seven bold predictions for 2026: Springboks reign to \u2018end\u2019, a new job for Ronan O\u2019Gara and Gregor Townsend\u2019s last Six Nations<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThe group\u2019s had a lot of adversity,\u201d said Tom Jordan, playing at 10 in place of AJ MacGinty, who ruptured an Achilles in those dark days of autumn when Bears were dropping like flies.<\/p>\n

Few back then would have predicted Bristol ending 2025 with an unbeaten home record, fewer still would have taken them to overturn a 10-point deficit here after tries by Tom O\u2019Flaherty and captain Ernst van Rhyn put Sale 17-7 in front.<\/p>\n

But Lam\u2019s men lack nothing in character. It might have taken Quirke\u2019s knee injury to free up the space for Matias Moroni to score and put them back in the contest on 55 minutes.<\/p>\n

They might also have been fortunate not to have lost Bill Mata to a card as early as the second minute. But that is where the luck ended.<\/p>\n

They had to win this hard the way \u2013 against a Sale team with the bit between its teeth and without Louis Rees-Zammit, who passed an HIA but stepped out of the contest at half-time as he was not feeling right.<\/p>\n

\u201cSale always play their best rugby against us,\u201d said Lam afterwards. They did that alright, but this time Bristol were up to the challenge.<\/p>\n

History repeating itself\u2026 well, almost<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d love history to repeat itself,\u201d Alex Sanderson said beforehand and the Sale Sharks boss so nearly got his way.<\/p>\n

Last season he instructed his team to \u201ccage the Bear\u201d. He fired up a side without an away point in the first half of the campaign to believe they could spring a major shock. Sale responded by winning 38-0.<\/p>\n

Until Northampton went to Bath last weekend with an understrength side and hammered the champions, that Sale effort stood unrivalled as the best away performance in the Prem.<\/p>\n

It seemed unthinkable they could repeat it against a Bears side fourth in the league and on a five-match winning streak. Warren Spragg, Sharks\u2019 kicking coach, said as much. \u201cIt was a freaky performance we had a year ago,\u201d he insisted. \u201cYou can\u2019t come here and repeat the same thing again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Only, they pretty much did. Inspired by Curry they threw a suffocating blanket over Bristol\u2019s attacking ambition. They were more aggressive, more disruptive and better organised.<\/p>\n

Want more from Planet Rugby? Add us as a preferred source on Google to your favourites list<\/a> for world-class coverage you can trust.<\/p>\n

They took the lead on 17 minutes through an O\u2019Flaherty try, made possible by Ma\u2019asi-White weathering a fierce Jordan hit and getting the ball to the edge.<\/p>\n

Although Joe Owen struck back for Bristol on the stroke of half-time they took the lead again through skipper Van Rhyn soon after the restart and when George Ford kicked a penalty it seemed Sanderson would again get his wish.<\/p>\n

Not this time. Instead, Bristol scored the final 12 points to leave Sharks seventh in the table, a distant 14 points behind their pace-setting conquerors.<\/p>\n

Quirke gives England 7-1 bench option<\/p>\n

For 55 minutes Quirke ran the show. He started the game at scrum-half but within two minutes moved to the wing to replace Alex Wills, smashed by Mata in an incident.<\/p>\n

What might have been as heavy a blow for Sharks as it was for Wills turned into a blessing as Quirke showcased his inner wing. He was a revelation, his pace unsettling Bristol at every turn.<\/p>\n

Steve Borthwick<\/a>, the England head coach, is keen to explore the possibility of a 7-1 bench with just one specialist back covering the positions behind the scrum.<\/p>\n

Until Quirke went down lame late on, his audition for that role had gone exceedingly well. Rather like Austin Healey in yesteryear he is equally effective in the back three as he at half-back.<\/p>\n

If only he can stay fit \u2013 and sadly that has proved beyond the Sale nine too often since his England debut in 2021 \u2013 he is a player Borthwick will want to see a lot more of.<\/p>\n

READ MORE: Welsh exodus continues as star back-rower reportedly making PREM Rugby switch<\/a><\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Following Bristol Bears\u2019 19-17 win over Sale Sharks at Ashton Gate, here are our five key takeaways from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":670230,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8818],"tags":[381,748,393,126,4884,225,12,6875,2384,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-670229","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-features","12":"tag-great-britain","13":"tag-home-page","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-premiership","16":"tag-sale-sharks","17":"tag-uk","18":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115828776126087555","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670229","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=670229"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670229\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/670230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=670229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=670229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=670229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}