Bristol cashed in on international star Olivier Magne's first-half French
farce to win their first-ever Heineken Cup match at the Memorial Stadium.
Montferrand could never quite make up the leeway after Magne's personal
nightmare saw the French club squander a whole host of early chances.
Montferrand eventually woke up to score two second-half tries. But a haul of
19 points from fly-half Felipe Contepomi, whose tally included four penalties, a
try and a conversion, and an exquisite touch-down from full-back Shane Drahm saw
Bristol home.
The only consolation for Magne was that none of the French selectors had made
the cross-channel trip to run the rule over him.
Montferrand's captain figured in most of his side's first-half attacking moves
and was responsible for the majority coming to grief.
Magne was responsible for two real missed opportunities as his side let
Bristol off-the-hook.
When the scrum-half Dave van Hoesslin made a break, Magne backed-up well but
selected the wrong option, passing left to lumbering lock Olivier Brouzet when
he had fly-half Gerald Merceron inside him with the Bristol defence at full
stretch.
Worse was to follow. With Bristol under pressure again Magne failed to realise
that his side's former England hooker Richard Cockerill, now plying his trade in
France, had cut inside and instead threw the ball straight into touch.
Bristol rode their luck and capitalised with three first-half penalties from
Contepomi which put them in 9-0 ahead at half-time.
Montferrand came out desperate to atone for their errors in the second half
and the almost inevitable try came in the 48th minute when wing David Bory burst
between Drahm and replacement right-winger Lee Best for a try which Merceron
converted to cut the deficit to two points.
But Bristol edged further ahead 10 minutes later when Drahm, taking a pass
from scrum-half Agustin Pichot, shaped to pass inside before showing a superb
piece of acceleration from a virtual standing start to race over near the
posts.
Contempomi missed the conversion and Montferrand hit straight back with Tony
Marsh running in a fine try after linking with his centre partner Johnny
Ngaumo.
Merceron missed the kick which would have pulled Monteferrand level and then
Contepomi landed his fourth penalty to increase the Bristol lead to 17-12. Then
Bory undid his earlier good work, cancelling out the try he had scored by
presenting one to Bristol.
His sloppy clearance kick was grabbed by Contempomi who gratefully ran clear
to touch down before adding the conversion.
Deep into injury time Montferrand scored again when Gregory Sudre capitalised
on a sloppy piece of defensive work by Bristol to score a try which fellow
replacement Xavier Sadourney converted but it came too late.
Following their defeat by Leinster last week, Bristol have revived their
European hopes but Montferrand, who have never lost a Heineken Cup match on
their own ground, remain the group favourites.
Teams:
Bristol: Drahm, Rees, Higgins, Gibson, Christophers, Contepomi,
Pichot, Sheridan, Johnstone, Crompton, Archer, A. Brown, Short,
Lipman, Oakley.
Not Used: E. Bergamaschi, Rowland, Salter, Nelson, Carrington, Best, Richards.
Tries: Drahm, Contepomi.
Cons: Contepomi.
Pens: Contepomi 4.
Montferrand: Viars, J. Marlu, Ngauamo, Marsh, D. Bory,
Merceron, Von Hoeslin, Tolofua, Cockerill, Bozzi, Lecomte,
Brouzet, Audebert, Machacek, Vermeulen.
Not Used: Taofifenua, Siepelski, Vaitanaki, Raynaud, Sudre,
Sadourny, Chanal.
Tries: D. Bory, Marsh, Sudre.
Cons: Merceron, Sadourny.
Att: 4,607
Ref: Nigel Whitehouse (Wales).
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