Bristol Bears

A waterlogged training ground around the back of the old stand used to force Bristol to train on the car park. Struggling to stay in the top division, they forever lived in the shadow of their neighbours. But now, the biggest shadow is cast by them, from an £11.5m high-performance centre.

Bears don’t do it for everyone. For instance, the giant bear brought in by Paul Gustard to help inspire his Harlequins troops is now presumed to be the same bear last seen getting fly-kicked by Joe Marler in his back garden at home.

Bears were in the rugby news in 2018, as the world of Twitter mumbled and grumbled about one of their oldest and most traditional clubs choosing to add the suffix to their famous name.  

And, yet, if you look back at the launch of Bristol Bears, while there are things that still make you cringe – not least the ‘bear in mind’ puns, hibernation metaphors and some motivational prose that’s best left in-house – it was done with foresight rarely seen in the professional rugby game. 

Read the small print of the rugby-playing Bristol Bears’ vision and they also talked of a vision that saw them bring in fans, not just from a younger demographic, but also in Asia and the USA, where bears meant something and, being blunt, Bristol didn’t. 

That America’s Major League Rugby played its first game in the same month as the rebrand went public, is either coincidence or a genius strategy predicting that the Bristol Bears, with their Harlem Globetrotters rugby, could find a fertile ground for new supporters across the Atlantic.

Back then, there was also enough self-awareness to admit the club had been slow to react to the professional era, a statement emphasised by their position at the time of launch, in the second tier of English rugby. 

Number crunching suggests the rebrand is working: shirts sales up 118 per cent; young fans are up 42 per cent (overall fans are up 33 per cent); and, as anyone who is even remotely aware of rugby social media knows, they’ve not only smashed it on those platforms figure-wise (up 30k), but they’ve set the bar in how they engage with fans. At a time when one of the most successful clubs in recent times finds itself in the midst of an identity crisis, one of their challengers is laughing, not at their rivals, but themselves, which is kind of essential to making yourself likeable on social media. “We wanted to laugh at ourselves to a certain degree,” says Mark Tainton, the CEO of Bristol Bears who also happens to be their record points scorer with 2,063. “We didn’t want to take ourselves too seriously, and you can see that with our social media.

“As for the name change, we were limited with what we had before,” he adds. “It was the crest of Bristol, and we literally asked kids to draw it and they couldn’t, but a bear, they could draw that.”

Mark was brought back to the club to initially fill the void left by the departure of Andy Robinson when the club were rooted to the bottom of the Premiership in 2016 after ten straight defeats. His era as a player – from 1984 to 1997 – was one of “waterlogged training pitches” behind the old Centenary Stand at the Memorial Ground, which often forced the twice-a-week training to take place in the car park. 

His second era, now of the suit-wearing management variety since the appointment of Pat Lam back in 2017, is one of an £11.5m training complex complete with two full-size pitches, an indoor 5G-pitch measured to exactly half of Ashton Gate, fully loaded gymnasium, medical, hydrotherapy and nutrition facilities, full-time kitchen and canteen, analysis rooms, players’ lounge, boardroom and administration offices, changing rooms with 50 lockers, and probably a whole lot more stuff that Rugby Journal wasn’t allowed to see. It’s all squeezed into a 44,000 sq ft facility on a 23-acre site just outside of Bristol. 

As if this isn’t enough, their support group also includes Bristol Sport, the umbrella organisation that encompasses Bristol City FC (men and women), Bristol Flyers Basketball, Ashton Gate Stadium and, of course, both Bristol Bears men and women. “Rugby and football are talking all the time,” says Mark. “On the high-performance side, the strength and conditioning and medical teams are always back and forth sharing ideas.

“There’s a lot of things we can learn from each other: for instance with the basketball we can look at the way their athletes jump, the plyometrics, and apply it to our lineouts. 

“We don’t interfere with each other,” he adds, “we just try and enhance each business, and it seems to be working well.”

Aside from a blip in form at the start of the current campaign and of course the semi-final collapse against Harlequins (more of which later), things seem to be working well for Bristol Bears. 

The relegation in 2017, was followed by promotion in 2018, a ninth-place finish in 2019, third and a losing semi-final in 2020 and first, but another losing semi in 2021. Crowds are strong too, including record crowds of 26,000-plus for the Bristol-Bath derby. CVC money was put not into players, but the bricks, mortar and real and artificial turf of the high-performance centre. Consistency was also important, so important they handed their director of rugby a seven-year-contract. “It’s a big commitment for the club to invest that long with Pat,” admits Mark. “But I believe he’s the right person to carry us, to take us forward, as does Steve Lansdown.”

Naturally, owner Lansdown is key to it all, so too is his son Jon, who played a big role in the rebrand. Lansdown senior made his money in financial services, co-founding Hargreaves Lansdown in 1981, and only leaving the board in 2012. According to Forbes, he’s worth $2.5bn. Although based in Guernsey, he’s close to Bristol Bears.  “Steve always knows what’s going on,” explains Mark. “But he puts people in place and trusts those people and allows you to get on and build what you’re trying to build. He’s a good sounding board too, as is Chris Booy [the club chairman], they’ll both always be there to listen to your ideas.

“His son Jon is a little bit more hands-on,” continues Mark. “He still lives in Bristol and he comes up here two or three times a week sounding out what goes on. He’s not interfering, he’s very creative and has great ideas and knows what he wants to achieve.”

Which is? “We want to be at the top table,” he says. “We want to have a chance every year of winning the Champions Cup and the Premiership and, if ever there is a world club competition, we want to be at that table too.”

Plans for the high-performance centre were drawn up before Pat arrived in Bristol. At least the initial plans. Not liking what he saw, the former Samoan backrower sat down with the architects and drew up his own plan. “We’re one team,” he says, recounting the story, “and I didn’t want the players here, the seniors here, the academy here, the staff, the admin team here – I wanted us together, one team. 

“I wanted to look at the flow of the place,” he continues, “so that when we came into work we could greet each other – a handshake, a hug, whatever – and then I talked about alignment of departments, bringing together teams [medical, strength and conditioning, coaching etc.], and then my third point was transition [between areas]. Every bit of time is valuable. So, I gave the architect a training schedule so it could all be worked out to minimise transition time.”

Outside his office, all the coaches sit, academy [junior and senior], men and women. Culture, alignment, and transition: three words he repeats as we chat. It’s sometimes in coach-speak, but the principles are simple: be nice to each other, work together, and get quickly to where you’re going.

There have been other changes too. “An independent audit on RFU academies, said the Bristol academy was the worst,” explains Pat. “We restructured it, splitting it into junior and senior, making it a truly Bristol Bears Academy. The RFU asked questions, they challenged me, but I said, ‘hang on, aren’t we the worst at the moment? Well, we need to do something else’.”

The something else is working, as the academy is now intrinsically linked to the seniors with former player Jordan Crane working as transition coach. “We had the smallest catchment area in terms of schools,” says Pat, “but that’s a strength. I came from Samoa, I came from teams like Connacht, and it’s a mindset – it gives us no excuse to not have strong relations with our key schools and clubs. Changing the mindset was massive, and now this building and facility aligns with that. The academy feel part of our team, players come in, and they know all the academy boys, it’s completely different to what it was like before...”

More alignment. “We’ve got the senior academy coaches, the junior academy coaches, we’ve got Dave Ward, the women’s coach, but as far as I’m concerned we’re all the Bears coaches – it’s great everyone is always talking shop, sharing ideas, it’s great.

“And then guess what happens?” he asks, rhetorically. “You get alignment. The subject might be maths in school, but the fundamentals are the same, and you just teach it at the appropriate level.”

Those fundamentals are undoubtedly driven by Pat, and they come with good foundations. “Graham Henry was the one who brought me through initially and he taught me a lot tactically and about how to play the game,” explains Pat. “Little things about running the ball from your own half, inside your own 22. He taught me that when I was his captain coming through at Auckland. He said, ‘Pat, their defensive line inside your 22, is it easier or harder [to break] than when you’re in their 22?’ He said, ‘think about where everyone’s standing...’ ‘Well, it’s easier,’ I said. ‘Yeah, there’s more space, but why don’t people go? Risk.’ So, then you look at how you mitigate risk and the answer is training. Improve skills, change the mindset. And that’s sat with me.

“Bryan Williams,” continues Pat on his coaching influences. “My coach with Auckland and Manu Samoa, he was my hero as a kid, my inspiration, the Jonah Lomu of the 1970s – I couldn’t believe I was playing for this guy. But he taught me a lot about the player group, leadership and the players having a say.

“And the other guy that was a huge, huge influence was Ian McGeechan,” says Pat of the man who would later take him on to the Scotland coaching staff. “It was funny, because I’d just won the Premiership with Newcastle and had no desire to leave, but then found out from my agent, they’d sold me to Northampton. But it was Ian McGeechan and, at the time, I thought that was the only benefit.

“He took me under his wing, and I learnt a lot and we’re still in touch – I spoke to him the other week, he’s been watching our games, and giving me feedback.”

In Pat’s office, there’s a framed shirt from his title-winning season with Connacht, an achievement that saw his market value rocket and put him on the top of many club owners’ wish lists. “Steve Lansdown and Chris Booy wanted me here on the basis of what I did at Connacht,” says Pat. “Because let’s face it, Connacht had the smallest budget in the northern hemisphere out of the three professional competitions. 

“That thing,” he says, pointing at the shirt. “Is not there because of, ‘oh, look at what I won’, it’s a reminder of it not being about how much money you have, it’s about culture, leadership, the process. We never had the best players, it was about how we did it.”

When he was approached, he insisted on being able to control the big picture. “I said, ‘if you want me to just coach rugby, then you’ve got the wrong guy’,” he says. “l love coaching, but I need to oversee the game, culture, leadership.

“I oversee it all, I don’t do all the work, but – right from the start – I wanted to oversee.”

It’s a lesson he learnt from his spell at Auckland Blues, which started well, but ended in disappointment. It didn’t work because there were factors beyond his control, something he remedies at Bristol, ensuring everyone has a clear idea of what’s expected. “Everyone who is employed by Bristol Bears has a responsibility,” he says. “If you don’t think you’re important to the performance on the field – which is actually what matters to the whole organisation – then what’s your job here?”

As a result, he ensures every employee knows how important they are to producing a performance on the field, no matter what their role. “That’s why I’m involved in pretty much every interview,” he says. “I don’t know whether he’s the best accountant, I don’t know if he’s the best physio, but what I will ask are questions about culture and leadership and, more importantly, show them what we are, so there’s no surprises if they join. 

“I didn’t like surprises [at previous places of work], so, yeah, I don’t want people to rock up and go ‘I don’t know about this’. I say ‘this is what we’re about, would you like to join us?’

“Everybody is part of the team...”

As such, every Monday morning, at 8.30am, the entire staff of the building – 120-130 – get together for a meeting. They do a highlights video from the weekend’s games, mention birthdays, people do individual presentations about themselves, and the culture group reels off a few facts about the city of Bristol. “Dave Attwood got up last week and did a talk about the car parking situation,” says Pat. “And we also get the boys on loan at other clubs to stand up and tell us how they got on, including a mark out of ten.”

A teacher by profession, Pat is definitely the hands-on coach Lansdown wanted. “I was head coach first year, then second year he made me director of rugby, because I did it all,” explains Pat. “I don’t do all the coaching, but I still love it, I still get that buzz from it, I love teaching, I love being outside – I can’t see myself ever not doing it, unless I’m on a [walking] stick. 

“But it’s just big-picture stuff, I trust these boys,” he adds, nodding to his coaches outside his office. “There’s others who do a lot more coaching than me, and I listen to their ideas, see how they fit into the big plan, and try and help them realise their ambitions too.”

Clarity is important. As a player, he says, he played best when he had a clear idea of what he had to do. “My role is to make sure that everyone knows what their roles are and they have clarity,” he says. 

Defeats happen. The start of this Premiership season was far from easy, with back-to-back defeats to Saracens and Wasps and then Harlequins and Newcastle, with only a win over a poor Bath stopping a run of five straight losses. 

When we went to print, they’d started to steady the ship in the league, winning against London Irish and Worcester, but most recently they had lost at home to Northampton Saints 20-36. Pat won’t be concerned, as even when it came to the semi-final where they threw away a 28-0 lead to lose 36-43 after extra half-time, he was able to be methodical in the aftermath.

“I look at it just as any game, honestly,” he says. “What I’ve learned is, when you get caught up with all the emotion of the occasion, that’s what will hinder your growth.

“The way that I process that game is no different from any game: the Wasps semi-final [in 2020, where they lost 47-24], the first game of the season at Saracens [a 26-9 defeat] or my first game here, against Hartpury in the Championship [a 26-15 win].

“[You’ve got to] ignore the outcome, look at what we did well, what we could do better, what were we trying to achieve – tick, tick, cross, cross.” 

Pat talks of systems, treating every game the same, and how the first 30 minutes of the semi-final were some their “best rugby ever”,  and they went through it “on autopilot”. 

Then, if you break down the second half, he says, only “three players made big mistakes, but that’s team sport; when you win, everyone wins, when you lose, everyone takes the hit.

“Don’t get me wrong I hate losing,” he adds. “I love winning, but in my role as leader, it’s so important how I react because I influence how everyone else will react. 

“When I had a coach who was inconsistent, it was horrific. The boys know that I don’t like losing, but they also know I’m very consistent.

“After the semi-final, the last thing I wanted to do is look at the game,” he admits. “Because I’m human and I knew that we blew it, but I was like, ‘right, let’s go back. And I stayed up all night that same day and went through it – I went through the whole thing, all the good stuff, all the bad stuff.

“We were going to be on holiday after, so I said let’s go through the game on Sunday, so everyone came in the next day. Some players had said they never wanted to look at it again, but afterwards they said, ‘yeah, that was good [thing to do]’. I went through it with the players, the board, the staff and made them realise how just a few key moments are key to winning and losing.

“And then, after that, everyone had a better holiday.”

Steven Luatua’s holiday started in quarantine. Two weeks of it, on his own, in a New Zealand hotel. “It was pretty dark days following [the semi-final], eh?” he says. “I was quite lucky as I ended up going back to New Zealand and quarantine because of lockdown, so I sat in my hotel room, and that was good.

“It was good not to talk to anyone, except for my family checking in every now and again,” he continues. “I just had two weeks lying in bed, chilling out, decompressing, flushing that season away – well, that semi-final. 

“We had that review and it was us not playing to our systems. I don’t want to go into too much detail, but there were times in that review when you questioned a lot. Who is this? Why are we doing this? This doesn’t look like us. And we had a few of those that second half.”

His DoR, he agrees, kept his cool though. “I’ve had both ends of the spectrum, when it comes to Pat’s range of emotions,” he says, “but after that game he was real calm, he was frustrated, angry, but he kept it bottled up well, and expressed himself or communicated the messages in that review. 

“I just think maybe as a squad we weren’t as fresh as we thought we were,” he adds. 

The fortnight in quarantine gave him time to reflect on his time at Bristol, which began when he signed in February 2017 as a 26-year-old, much to the surprise of the All Blacks for whom he’d played only the previous November, scoring against Italy. “It was really hard, I didn’t come across it lightly,” he says of the decision to join Bristol. “I decided to put my family first. I went back to why I started: I enjoy the moments, but I played to provide a better future for my family, and Japan and England were the options. At the same time, I knew Pat from before, I knew I could grow my rugby here.”

The All Blacks tried to dissuade the 15-cap international, who had yet to reach his peak.

“Yup, I caught up with some of the management,” he says. “I explained my reasons why, and we left on good terms. There were a few discussions about staying, but they knew I was happy with my decisions. 

“I went back to my wife, my family, and it was too hard for me to turn down when I was looking at the future. I had one girl then [he’s got two now], and, coming from a Polynesian background, I still help out mum and dad, siblings. 

“As much as I’ve come through this track now – and, a lot of the Polynesian boys here do same thing – we didn’t get here alone, our mum and dad and siblings made a lot of sacrifices to get us here, so I help out when I can.”

He knew he was joining a side bottom of the Premiership, looking likely to drop to the Championship. “I was watching every week and cheering Bristol,” he says. “I remember one result, I think we beat Bath around Christmas, and I was fist-pumping thinking, ‘yes, this is the turn’, but then for the rest of the season they just kept losing. 

“To be fair, I think us being in the Championship for that first year was a blessing in disguise; we were young as a squad, and [if we’d stayed up] we probably would’ve been relegated anyway.”

At first glance, he liked what he saw. “It was very weird,” he says. “I’d gone from Eden Park being my home ground and while I was stoked when I got here and saw Ashton Gate, we then went to some of the smaller teams...

“I think my first away game was Cornish Pirates, and the weather was terrible, we were changing on top of each other, and I was thinking, ‘I thought we were going to a professional outfit’. 

“But these guys played for the love of the game,” he acknowledges, “and that was the best thing I got out of it, playing against guys who had 9-5 jobs during the week and then at the weekend they fronted up on the rugby field and I found that really humbling. 

“Just seeing their take on the game, seeing the effort they put in, yeah, I think that year in the Champ was a blessing in disguise.

“After that first game I accepted the fact we wouldn’t be playing in the stadiums I was used to, it was going to be more grassroots, and I enjoyed the bruising encounters. 

“I played London Scottish and Richmond at the same ground, Ealing really fronted up against us every time and I was like, ‘wow’.”

The change in the side happened, when the likes of Charles Piutau and John Afoa joined, helping them deal with the rigours of the top flight after promotion. “Those guys were pivotal,” he says. “Just having Johnny there, an old-timer who knows a thing or two, has the tricks up his sleeves, helped us through so many games. We were still pretty young as a team, we got pumped quite bit. The games we did win gave us glimpses that when we did play our game we were pretty lethal.”

Although Bristol’s progress seems to have come at pace, two play-off semi-finals from three Premiership years, Steven isn’t happy. “I think we’re behind schedule,” he says. “As players, that first season back we wanted to make top four. 

“Even that second season, when we did make the semi-final, we had that strong belief that when it comes to top four everyone could beat everyone – look at last season with Quins – so yeah, we’re behind. 

“The path is a little bit trickier this year,” he says, referencing the early defeats. “But hopefully we’ll get a top-four spot.”

Is it better to have the ‘blip’ early on? “Yeah, I don’t want to say it out loud, but I’d say so. For us as a team, for what we did last year, I think it’s good for us to go through this process now. And I’m pretty excited seeing how hard the guys are working to get the team back on track.”

No doubt helped by the team meetings and the Bristol pop quiz, Steven says he’s learned a lot about the city, the team, and gives nods to setting new club records when playing the likes of Bath and Gloucester. 

“Just seeing how much it means to the true Bristolians, seeing the emotions,” he says. “It was like we were genuinely giving something back. I honestly believe we have one of the greatest fanbases in rugby. One of our first games back after quarantine, there was a limited number of seats, but it felt like a sell-out, they were so happy to be back, the cheering, the roaring.

“Coming from New Zealand, I think sometimes, we’re pretty young in how we support our teams, but here, you look at football sides, and no matter what, good or bad, the numbers are good, they buy into the team. And I think here at Bristol we’ve got that too.” 

And the squad remains tight as well. “A lot of us have been through that Champ year together and are now running to our fifth or fourth year.

“And the reason I say we’re in a good place in terms of friendship, is that we can hold each other accountable on the field; nothing is taken personally.

“We know how to approach each other, so if someone is playing like crap we know how to tell them without them taking it personally, but taking it on board. 

“That’s why I know I’ve got a lot of friends here because I get a lot of boys chipping in my ear when I‘m playing shit. So, yeah, we’re in a good place.”

That place isn’t as good as the Bristol Bears women, at least when it comes to league position. As Steven admits, with a laugh, ‘they’re showing us up’. Six games in, six victories. Top of the league. Last season, their campaign finished with them in eighth place, 38 points adrift of a play-off place.

Bristol-born head coach Dave Ward is only too aware of where Bristol once were, both in terms of league position and geography. “It’s incredible to see where Bristol is,” he admits, looking at his high-performance surroundings. “I’ve seen Bristol bounce around training grounds, but there’s always been that energy for a top-flight rugby team in the city. Bristol people are passionate about sport, they’re passionate about lots of things, but especially sport.”

Dave’s own playing ambitions, like many from the 36-year-old’s era, had once been in the colours of their rivals. It was Bath he joined as a six-year-old, working his way up to the first team. “This was when Bath were the bigger brother,” he says. “I played for Bath all the way up, and that was in the Bristol era of Mark Regan, Garath Archer, Matt Salter, they were the Bristol players I looked up to. 

“I didn’t get to play against them,” admits the former hooker, who joined Bristol from Ampthill, where he was player-coach. “But I did get on the bench when Bristol beat Bath at the Rec in 2005; that was a strange one for me.”

Now there are no divided loyalties since his appointment earlier this year. “I’m an ambitious coach and I knew the ambition they had with the women’s programme, and then I met Pat, and I was like ‘yeah, I really want the job’.”

His coaching career started twelve years ago, while a player at Cornish Pirates, when he started helping St Just – “the most westerly team in England,” he adds – and he continued on the path when he signed for Harlequins, this time holding the role of head coach at local side Guildford for seven years. 

“Ian Davies, the head coach at Pirates, he was my coaching mentor, he told me to do it as early as possible,” explains Dave, who completed his level three coaching badge at 26. “In my last couple of years at Quins, I got almost as much enjoyment from coaching and being a successful coach as I did from playing. 

“And I really enjoyed it,” he continues, “even level ten, with players playing for fun. Just to be able to give them a little bit of knowledge, why you do different things, then see them implement it at the weekend, and then come back for more – that’s where I got a buzz from.”

He was far from unfamiliar with women’s rugby: even as a teenager, he worked alongside some of the biggest names in the game, joining a year-long programme at Oldfield School for talented players. “It allowed us to base studies around the rugby, and they ran the women’s programme at the same time, so I went to school with Danielle Waterman, Rachael Burford, Heather Fisher, Georgie Gulliver, to name a few who went on to become Red Roses.

“So I’ve always been around women’s rugby, and then of course I met Abbie [Ward, his wife, and now a Bristol player] at Harlequins.”

As you’d expect, it was the ‘alignment’ at Bristol that also appealed to Dave, as he is very much part of the Bristol Bears coaching staff and not a loosely connected appendage as the women once were. “Women aren’t naïve,” says Dave, “they know they don’t bring the same fans so they’re not asking to be paid the same, but they do want equal rights, which is completely fair.

“The men have got the high performance centre, so do the women; the men have nutrition, so do the women – simple things like that are the biggest change I’ve seen.

Pat has also taken a keen interest. “Everyone’s seen what Pat’s done here for the last five years, and it’s incredible for me to have him to talk to,” says Dave. “For me to have Pat say, ‘right, Dave, I’ve got a move for you – you’ve got Grace, Jas, Courtney and Snowie at ten ... for Pat to be even talking like that about my team is insane. He knows the players, he came to our game last weekend, to have someone that supportive is brilliant. The girls love it, and I love it too. It shows he’s serious. 

“A lot of the time in women’s sport, women get told what they want to hear – certainly at some clubs – and Pat was like ‘right, let’s do something about this programme’, and all the girls were like ‘we’ve heard it all before’, but now they’re seeing he’s serious. When Pat puts his name to something, he commits to it.”

And Dave is a big part of that commitment. “My role is to run the best women’s programme in the country,” he says. “I don’t know if I’m doing that yet but time will tell,” he admits. “People said to me, ‘have you coached women before? It’s completely different’ but the biggest compliment I can pay is that I coach the girls just as hard as I coached at Ampthill [in the men’s Championship], and they’re a tough rugged pack at Ampthill – I coach the women just the same.

“When it’s good I tell them, when it’s not so good I tell them,” he says of his approach. “They want to improve. 

“There’s little idiosyncrasies,” he adds. “I can’t just chuck myself in the middle of the scum like I would at Ampthill, but actually, for me, it’s been exactly the same. 

“The application from the girls has been amazing, and coming from the Ampthill environment where they all had full time jobs, so do the girls, so you understand that maybe they don’t want to be shouted at on a Monday, so we can do a review, and maybe, you know, box clever.”

And the difference between the side this year and last? “One of the values we’ve got them to look at, is how to be streetwise, to be a bit clever about what we’re doing and when we’re doing it, and so far so good.”

They also have a professional training programme supporting them, which certainly helps. “The girls here have access to three rugby sessions, three speed sessions, three weight sessions, two skill sessions, three reviews and full analysis every week,” explains Dave. “That’s only two or three sessions short of a full-time professional rugby player.”

The sessions work seamlessly with the men’s. “If the men are in the gym, the girls are on the field, the programmes work around each other,” says Dave. “If the girls want to, they can do every session and basically be a professional rugby player,” he continues. “Some of the girls are able to do that because they’re at university, so they can do that around their studies. Some of them can’t, some are travelling from west Wales, but it’s incredible, the take-up and what they’re doing.”

Wales contributes a big part of the Bristol squad, with fourteen Welsh-qualified players among their number.

“The quality of the Welsh players is amazing,” he says, “and this is not a dig, but how Wales are not performing in the Six Nations is a mystery to me. Last week, we had the 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 and replacement 13 and 11 [from Wales].

“These girls are incredible players. I think there’s a changing of the guard now with Wales and that’s going to put them in good stead,” reckons Dave, “but these [Wales] girls this year have been some of the better players and challenging the full-time English girls.”

Dave’s coaching career could have been different, as before going to Ampthill he was set to join Leeds as player-coach. “I’d signed the deal, and me and Abbie were going to look at houses in Leeds, and Stirlo [Chris Stirling, then DoR] said we needed to come and have a meeting. 

“I knew something was up, and he laid it all out, saying one of the financial investors had pulled out, which meant all of them were gone, there was going to be no money, the contract was invalid. 

“At that point I’d already left Quins, they’d found somebody else, so I just had to manage it.”

Instead he spent two years at Ampthill, priming himself for his first head coach role at Bristol Bears, while also picking up a second sport. “I also coached at King’s College,” he says, “but I had to get a second sport to teach there, so I picked up tennis and I got my level three.”

Can you play tennis? “No, but I can coach it,” he says. “Level two was fine, but for level three they said, ‘okay Dave, you serve a slice to the backhand’, ‘Erm, no I can’t’. 

“It was quite funny,” he admits. “I saw Emma Raducanu training at Bromley, where I did my coaching course. Our coaching mentor would say to us ‘she’s going to do great things’. And I was like ‘they always say that’, and then she won the US Open.”

Dave has adapted quickly to his new role, understanding the challenges that come with managing a squad that also have full-time jobs. “You might have a box-kicking sessions and no nines turn up, or set up an analysis session based on a winger and they can’t make it, but that’s part of it.

“But I genuinely think women’s rugby’s potential is huge,” he says. “The gap is closing, there’s been great games in terrible conditions too, and the level of skill has increased, the quality has increased too. The two [Allianz Premier 15s] semi-finals last year were two of the best games of rugby I’ve seen, bar none, including all the men’s game I’ve ever watched. And that’s not me being biased, and pushing women’s rugby, because I’d only just got the Bristol job, but they were just absolutely fantastic.”

He also sees a time when the club’s players are fully professional. “The finances don’t have to be great,” he says, “they’re not asking for £100,000, they need enough to live on, so they can do rugby full-time and focus on that and commit time to their sport.” 

Coaching your wife as part of your full-time job could, for some, be a challenge. “There’s Dave Ward, the coach, and Dave the husband,” he says. “Abbie is a fantastic player in her own right and has been a brilliant professional, one of our players of the season so far, I don’t mind saying. 

“And, actually, a lot of the girls didn’t know we were married for a while, because we are professional. At home, I’ve got to keep one woman happy, here I’ve got to keep 45. Here, Abbie’s just another one of the 45.”

Another Bristolian, Amber Reed, was also in a very different place last season, even though she was still at the same club she’d been with since 2009. “Honestly,” she admits. “I wasn’t sure I’d finish the season playing rugby. 

“Last season was pretty tough; we didn’t perform the way we wanted to, we finished eighth and we’d been aiming to be top four.

“We had multiple changes in terms of our coaching set-up,” she continues. “We had Tom Lindsay full time, Kim Oliver as head coach and then, come January, that all changed, Kim left, and I found that really difficult.

“I’d played with Kim at Bristol and, back in the day, with England and she’s a really good friend. To see her, someone that I chatted to on a regular basis about how to improve about how to move the team forward... to see her leave meant I kind of lost that link.

“Without her being there, and then coming in to help with the coaching was really difficult,” she admits, having been asked to step in alongside Tom to coach the side. 

“Personally, I was out injured,” continues Amber. “It was really frustrating. I’d damaged a couple of my Lisfranc ligaments and I was supposed to be back playing in March, but it wasn’t right, so had to have another surgery to remove the metal-work they had put in.”

She is now fit to play and enjoying her rugby, but Amber struggled on all fronts last season. “The changes in coaching, losing a good friend and sounding board, missing out on the Six Nations, it was really difficult, the most difficult season I’ve had,” admits Amber. “I was probably kind of at a point where I didn’t really enjoy rugby anymore. I was a bit over rugby, over the environment and just questioning what I wanted to do next.”

Injured in November 2020, Amber only returned for this campaign; it felt like an injury that would never end. “It felt like I was hitting a load of bumps and it was going on a lot longer than it should have.”

Which was where her team helped push her on. “I didn’t want to let the girls down and not do them justice,” she says. “It definitely kept me going but so did my team-mates. Clara [Nielson] who’s the co-captain, we’re really good friends, and she helped me day-in, day-out at the club, when it was difficult. But also our physio Kate bore a lot of the brunt of the tantrums and tears and the breakdowns and all sorts, and she definitely kept me going, and S&C Gareth. They both still work at the club, they’re a massive part of why I’m still at Bristol and still want to play.”

Amber is at the club where she’s always felt she belonged. “Playing for your home club is pretty special,” she says. “But definitely the people, my team-mates, are the ones who have kept me there for this duration, especially through tough times.”

Ambition was always there too, even if it took on different guises. “Even before we moved to the HPC, we’ve kind of always had aspirations to be bigger and better,” she says. “So to start off with, it was trying to be the first female standalone club, not linked to any others.

“And I really wanted to be part of that, even though I went to Exeter University because Bristol was still the closest Prem club – there were a lot of songs sung on a lot of trips up and down the M5.”

Back in her early Bristol days, Amber was part of ‘two car-loads’ of players who commuted to and from Exeter to mix education with top-flight rugby. “They [the uni] paid for the petrol, they saw the benefit of us playing for them and saw how it would grow the uni team, and that shows today, it’s laid the foundations for that team and now Exeter Chiefs have a lot going there.”

Amber is thriving in the new environment, from buying in to Pat’s thinking, to feeling part of the Bristol Bears club, on and off the field. “The only facilities that I’ve probably seen that would come close are the massive college gyms and facilities they have out in America,” she says of the training base. “The HPC is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced, and I definitely couldn’t have dreamt of being part of that, let alone training in that environment day-in day-out. 

“It’s the stuff dreams are made of and for that to be my home club where I’ve grown up and a team that I’ve grown up supporting is definitely really special.”

Results are now happening too. “I’ve seen the potential that we’ve had in our sport every year,” she says. “And I think, if we’re being really honest about it, we probably haven’t reached our potential, that’s the most frustrating thing over the years. Hopefully it will change this year.”

Before now, it felt like the two Bears teams were almost unconnected, with the men’s side ‘helping out’ with equipment, playing kit, sponsorship, and the occasional training session. But now, Amber and her colleagues are free to join in any session. “For the England players, we get a chance to be here during the day as well and it’s open all areas in terms of Pat, Conor [McPhillips, assistant coach] and Omar [Mouneimne, defence and collision coach] – they always allow us to go into those meetings. 

“We can go in, sit in the back of the meeting, see what they’re chatting about, then go out and watch the training and see how the meetings reflect that,” explains Amber. “And there’s a lot of crossover in terms of what Dave and Tom have brought to our game and the performances they want us to put out on the pitch.  So to see the guys running it through first helps with the speed of our learning.

“This season,” she concludes, “has kind of taken us to a whole new level, and the boys are really welcoming.”

Freed of the ‘weight of troubles’ on her shoulders, Amber believes the Bears are finally ‘just going out and enjoying playing rugby’, which undoubtedly applies to her too. “You want to do the place justice,” she says. “The Bristol Bears women have worked hard enough for this opportunity to be able to train at the HFC and, actually, when you’re there, you don’t then want to take your foot off the gas. It’s not a destination. It’s a place that you want to turn up to and actually inspires you to be better every time.”

And, although she’s happy to be back purely on the playing side, she does use the experience of last season. “I think it’s really important to reflect back on things,” she says. “Especially the times that weren’t so great. 

“For me personally, the mistakes and the dark times are the things that you can really learn from,” continues Amber. “They change and mould you as a person for the better. 

“Sometimes it’s not always for the better, but hopefully there’s still something that you can learn from and use for the next time you’re in a similar situation and maybe you can avoid going right to the dark place.

“I think I’ve learned that what happens in the future isn’t determined by past events; you can always shape and mould better things to happen.”

Story by Alex Mead

Pictures by Michael Leckie

This extract was taken from issue 16 of Rugby.
To order the print journal, click here.