EXCLUSIVE: How fearless Bristol turned rugby’s Greatest Showmen

At the end of 2023, Pat Lam’s circus of great entertainers briefly left Bristol. Now, the show has returned with a bang. After a short identity crisis, the Bears have rediscovered themselves on and off the field to lead the way going into the fifth round of Premiership fixtures.

‘We used to run out to the theme tune from The Greatest Showman,’ Bristol’s chief operating officer Tom Tainton tells Mail Sport. ‘That was very Bears, wasn’t it?’

Indeed, it was. And perhaps it is now time for Bristol to bring back the classic from the popular Hugh Jackman movie, because on the evidence of the first four rounds of the 2024-25 English club rugby season, it is Bristol who are serving up the Premiership’s greatest show.

At Exeter’s Sandy Park last Saturday, Lam’s side scored 28 points in the final 14 minutes to overturn a 20-point deficit and complete a remarkable comeback. Red-hot wing Gabriel Ibitoye bagged a nine-minute hat-trick.

It summed up the fearless attacking approach which is now back in Bristol’s DNA. With three wins and a loss — with a four-try bonus-point in each game — so far this term, the Bears are top of the table and on Saturday host second-placed Saracens at Ashton Gate.

‘Entertainment is absolutely fundamental to everything we do at Bristol,’ says Tainton. ‘We try to play an expansive game with a team of youngsters. We want people to come to our matches and see Bristol as a team that is successful and playing rugby the right way, but also as a trailblazer off the field.

‘One of Bristol Sport’s values is to be maverick. When we’re discussing new ideas, we talk about whether it’s maverick or innovative. Is it something no-one else has done? Credit to Pat because we couldn’t work to that mantra if what we were serving up on the field was a kick-fest.

‘We want people to watch and think “Jeez, this is exciting.” We’re here to win trophies and we want to inspire our community by doing that.

‘But equally, growing the game by encouraging youngsters is what we’re about. It’s critical. If we wake up five years from now and we’ve just gone through the same routine rugby always has done, we’ll have missed a huge opportunity.

‘I’d like to think we’re everyone’s second favourite team because we’re trying to do things differently.’

Bristol have achieved that in this campaign. Their adventurous approach is not necessarily new. But it has been reborn after a stint around the turn of the year when, by his own admission, director of rugby Lam changed tack. The Bears have reverted to type since March and reaped the rewards.

‘I went away from being me,’ Lam confesses. ‘The way a team plays comes down to the coach. The way I want to play is to attack. If it’s on, it’s on. I want my team to be fearless. Having been at this club a while and particularly having lost the semi-final to Harlequins in 2021, you take a look at things. I started to wonder if we should play differently.

‘In the last two years, there have been a lot of statistics that show if you kick more, you win more games. We got seduced by that.

‘I looked back the other day on our game against Exeter last Christmas. It was horrendous. We had a full house and the amount of kicking we did was ridiculous. In January, we got beaten by Connacht and they played like us.

‘That was the biggest disappointment. We simplified things and went back to what we do best — being fearless.’

Now, perhaps, we are seeing Bristol 2.0. In the break for the 2024 Six Nations, Lam reset the machine. Once the international action was done, the Bears came out and hammered eventual champions Northampton 62-8. From there, they went on a remarkable run which saw them only just miss out on a play-off spot.

‘Last season, we scored the most tries in the Premiership,’ Lam says. ‘But we only played well for half the season. When your team has the most tries, but not the top try-scorer, that’s huge. That’s the sort of statistic I go after.

‘I would 100 per cent not be here if I didn’t believe we could win trophies playing like this. We’ve had lots of challenges in the last two years, but we’ve come through that.

‘This is the way forward for us. We’re in a business that needs an entertainment factor. I get contacted by a lot of people who tell me they love the way we play. We want to win, but we want to do it an entertaining way and that will also help with our responsibility to grow the game.

‘Everyone at this club has conviction in how we play. Sometimes you have to try other things and we did, but that wasn’t us and it has strengthened our belief this is the way to go.’

Bristol’s poor results at the turn of the year — coupled with moving away from their traditional modus operandi — saw Lam’s position come under threat.

Billionaire owner Steve Lansdown was not happy with the product. But since the Northampton game, all has been rosy in the Bristol garden.

This summer, Lam rejigged his squad. It is now more youthful and smaller. Bristol have the ability to spend up to the Premiership’s salary cap, but are choosing not to in a bid to be more financially stable. There is an acknowledgement they can’t rely on Lansdown’s money forever.

Bristol’s recruitment goes hand-in-hand with their style of play. Bristol’s squad contains fewer superstars than in previous years, but they are always interested in a big-name signing who could put more bums on seats. They did express an interest in Harlequins’ England fly-half Marcus Smith.

Lam’s men’s side were visited this week by Olympic swimmer Adam Peaty, who brought his winning mentality to the players. Both Bristol teams train alongside each other.

Bristol’s players and staff all eat together at their state-of-the-art training facility which is a stone’s throw from Championship football side Bristol City’s base. Both clubs come under the banner of the Bristol Sport Group owned by Lansdown. Just a few weeks ago, Lam dined with City boss Liam Manning.

All of the food served at Bristol’s rugby base comes from within an eight-kilometre radius. On the day Mail Sport visited, roast cod loin and oysters were on the menu. Bristol’s players can relax in their team room on a hammock and with table tennis and pool tables. The club’s bold rugby and marketing strategies seem to be working.

As the sport battles for its place in the British sporting landscape, Bristol’s attendances are up and they are attracting a younger, more diverse audience. In May, they will take a Premiership game to Wales for the first time in what is another ‘maverick’ idea. Bristol — who rebranded as the Bears in 2018 — have already sold 20,000 tickets for that Principality Stadium game.

‘It could be something special and a great showcase for the Premiership,’ says Tainton, who has taken inspiration for Bristol’s direction of travel from trips to the United States to watch Major League Soccer and Major League Baseball. ‘We want to make it the biggest day Bristol have ever had in terms of entertainment. If we can come up with a credible business idea, we want to explore it. It could be overseas, but we haven’t exhausted our own patch yet.’

Bristol are now firmly back on track and judging by their exciting season so far, the future looks like it will be anything but dull. The show will continue on Saturday against Saracens in what will be an intruiging clash of playing styles. Whatever happens, Bristol are no longer for changing.