Gallagher Premiership

Bristol Bears (40) 52

Tries: Bates 3, Williams 2, Janse van Rensburg, Randall, Luatua Cons: Byrne 6

Exeter Chiefs (24) 38

Tries: Moloney, Slade, Jenkins, Hodge, Yeandle, Rigg Cons: Slade, Hodge 3

Bristol Bears kept up the pressure on Bath at the top of the Premiership with a thrilling 52-38 win over Exeter Chiefs at Ashton Gate in a game of 14 tries.

The game’s first quarter saw a flood of tries as Bears secured a bonus point in 16 minutes – the second quickest time in Premiership history, narrowly failing to beat Northampton’s record of 14 minutes.

Jack Bates got the scoring started on the way to grabbing a hat-trick, while James Williams scored twice and Benhard Janse van Rensburg also went over for the Bears in an electrifying start.

But Chiefs picked up a bonus point by half-time too thanks to tries from Martin Moloney, Henry Slade, Dafydd Jenkins and Josh Hodge.

The match also saw a referee’s decision broadcast over a stadium public address system in the Premiership for the first time when Karl Dickson sent off Bristol’s Argentina back row Santiago Grondona before the break.

But despite having a man advantage for the majority of the match, Chiefs could not deal with Bristol’s work-rate as they were beaten for the 10th time this season.

Bristol’s victory left them only one point behind leaders Bath, who host Gloucester on Sunday, while Exeter remain second from bottom.

In the run-up to the match, Bristol director of rugby Pat Lam had said his side were coming back into the Premiership “stronger” than before the international break with centre Williams back in the squad after injury, England internationals Harry Randall and Ellis Genge returning from Six Nations duty and Leinster loanee Harry Byrne extending his stay at the club until the end of the season.

Lam was certainly right in an attacking sense but defensively there was a lot to be desired for both teams as they exchanged a series of tries in the opening quarter, seemingly always from restarts.

In the first two minutes a sweeping line-out move from the Bears allowed full-back Rich Lane to feed in player of the match Bates for his first try.

Chiefs winger Paul Brown-Bampoe claimed the first of many restarts soon after, with Moloney finishing the sustained attack with a try before Williams broke a tackle to get Bristol back in the lead in the eighth minute.

The tries did not stop coming as Chiefs fly-half Ben Coen’s cross-field kick was caught by winger Hodge, who offloaded to Slade for an immediate response.

Bears’ South African centre Janse van Rensburg then collected Byrne’s high kick-off and raced through the visitors’ defence to score the fifth try in 10 minutes.

The tit-for-tat try scoring then cooled with Bears getting consecutive tries for the first time in the match when Williams touched down for his second from another quick Bears line-out move, securing his side their first bonus point.

Jenkins’ pick and go kept Exeter in it and made it 26-19 with 20 minutes played.

Bates crossed for the second time eight minutes later, with Exeter’s England centre Henry Slade then failing a head injury assessment after being hit hard by Bears number eight Viliame Mata in the build up.

Hodge secured Exeter a bonus point when he scored a try from his own chipped ball and Rob Baxter’s side received a further boost when Grondona was sent off for catching Moloney’s face with his head.

However, being a man down seemed no problem for Bears as Randall sniped over to take the score to 40-24 at half-time.

Following the highest scoring first half in the league’s history, Bears firmly pulled away at the start of the second as back row replacement Steve Luatua rode tackles from Richard Capstick and Will Rigg to power over.

Bates then completed his hat-trick thanks to the intuition of scrum-half Randall’s quick tap penalty and incisive running, which had caused chaos for the Chiefs defence throughout the match.

That proved to be the end of the hosts’ scoring, although Exeter grabbed consolation tries through substitute hooker Jack Yeandle and centre Rigg to take Chiefs’ try tally up to six and 14 in total.

Bristol Bears player Jack Bates told BBC Radio Bristol:

“Fun and very exhausting. It was a bit like a game of tennis, we were scoring, they were scoring.

“Then we came together and were like ‘let’s just take control of it, go through the phases and then the opportunities will open up’.

“I felt like we did that at times, we finished some good tries and then got a little loose towards the end.

“Our kick-off wasn’t quite there today so, an easy fix heading into next week. Once we sort our kick-offs then we’ve got our options off it.

“We pride ourselves on playing from anywhere. We saw a little bit of that today and we put a lot of focus in this break on finishing them opportunities, not getting loose like if we make a big line break, we don’t have to force it, we can take those yards and then set up from there.”

Exeter Chiefs director of rugby Rob Baxter told BBC Radio Devon:

“I’m super proud of the lads today. We had some highs and lows in that game but we stuck at it. We showed some real resilience and we’re going to get better.

“I don’t mind setting records, I’d prefer to set them in a slightly different way. It was a little bit of a crazy opener and fair play to Bristol.

“They’ve got a particular attacking style that’s really difficult to deal with, they’re really great in attack.

“I guess if I wasn’t wearing this cap it would’ve been nice to watch that.”

Bristol: Lane; Bates, Janse van Rensburg, Williams, Ravouvou; Byrne, Randall; Woolmore, Oghre, Kloska, Dun, Owen, Grondona, Harding, Mata.

Replacements: Thacker, Thomas, Lahiff, Caulfield, Luatua, Marmion, Elizalde, Naulago.

Sin bin: Naulago (77)

Red card: Grondona (29)

Exeter: John; Brown-Bampoe, Slade, Rigg, Hodge; Coen, Cairns; Goodrick-Clarke, Norey, Roots, Jenkins, Tshiunza, Moloney, Capstick, Fisilau.

Replacements: Yeandle, Blose, Iosefa-Scott, Pearson, James, Armstrong, Skinner, Hammersley.

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