'Bears don't lose to Bath', perfect 10s & shootout drama

Standing in the early-evening sunshine at Ashton Gate, as the Bristol fans revelled in a first play-off finish in four years, director of rugby Pat Lam was in defiant mood.

After allowing himself a handful of seconds to dwell on the 52-26 win over Harlequins that secured the Bears' play-off place, Lam's attentions swiftly turned to Friday night and the semi-final showdown with local rivals Bath at The Rec.

"Bath have only lost four games this year - who have they lost to?" he rhetorically asked BBC Radio 5 Live, knowing full well his side have done the double over the runaway league leaders.

"So we know how to do it, and that's what we'll do. We know how to beat them. We have done it in so many different ways - rain, dry weather, home, away.

"When we came back up [into the Premiership in 2018], the supporters made it really clear we don't lose to Bath, and we have won 11 out of 14 since.

"We know how to do it and it's about getting it all right on Friday."

Owner Steve Lansdown's money has helped to tempt a host of superstars to Ashton Gate since their promotion in 2018, but Lam insists Bristol are no longer among the league's big spenders, as the club cut its cloth during and after Covid.

"As far as spend goes, we spend eighth [out of the 10 Premiership teams]," Lam explained.

"Ourselves and Bath are the only two teams to be in the top four all season, yet Bath have spent nearly £3m more on their squad than we have.

"It reminds me of Connacht when we won the Pro12. So to get to this stage I am so pleased and proud of the players.

"Bath in six days' time - I just have to do the gameplan, I don't have to do any motivation or talking. The local boys - Ellis Genge, Yann Thomas - they will take control."

Bring it on.

In the end, the top four ended the final day of the regular season as it started, with Leicester, Sale and Bristol all doing enough to book their play-off places and join Bath in the semi-finals.

But while Leicester, who beat Newcastle 42-20, and Bristol enjoyed routine home wins, Sale had to dig deep against an Exeter side desperate to rally after a forgettable campaign.

Bath remain the bookies pick for the title, understandably so given their excellence all campaign and the depth of their squad. But Leicester are narrow favourites to join them in the Twickenham showpiece, thanks to the home advantage they will enjoy against the Sharks at an emotionally-charged Welford Road on Saturday.

However, Sale's George Ford, who continued his supreme personal form, was unperturbed following the tricky 30-26 win at Sandy Park.

"We knew they were much improved the last few weeks, and we were anticipating a game like that," he told BBC 5 Live.

"It was like a quarter-final for us, and finals rugby is never easy anyway. There are parts of our game we will need to fix up for next week, and we will do that."

While Bath against Bristol is as tantalising a Premiership semi-final as you could get, Leicester against Sale isn't far behind.

Premiership Rugby revealed in the week that fly-halves are again the league's highest-paid position, with the playmakers earning an average of more than £230,000 a season.

It's not hard to see why. On show over semi-final weekend will be three of the world's best: Finn Russell for Bath, Handre Pollard for Leicester and Ford for Sale - who are all in great form - while Bristol's AJ MacGinty is also a class act and won the man-of-the-match award against Harlequins.

On a recent Rugby Union Weekly podcast we discussed the question: if you could pick any of those fly-halves in your side to win a Premiership final, who would you choose? All three co-hosts picked someone different.

Whichever club ends up winning the Premiership title on 14 June is likely to owe a few more quid to the big earners.

Arguably the biggest story of the weekend didn't take place in Britain or Ireland but in Durban, South Africa, as the Sharks reached the last four of the United Rugby Championship by beating Munster 6-4 in a penalty shootout following a 24-24 draw.

Munster emptied the tank on a daunting away fixture, as they always seem to do when the stakes are high, but were edged out after the Sharks superbly converted all six of their place-kicks.

But the shootout was riddled with controversy as first Jack Crowley exchanged words with Jaden Hendrikse after the latter opened the scoring, before Hendrikse went down with cramp just after nailing his second kick to put the Sharks 4-2 up.

The conveniently-timed injury meant Crowley initially could not take his second shot at goal, despite the Irishman telling referee Mike Adamson he was prepared to kick with the prone Hendrikse a matter of metres away.

Whether Hendrikse was genuinely injured or not was fiercely debated post-match, but his wink towards Crowley - rugby's most notable since Bloodgate - means he will not get the benefit of the doubt in many quarters.

The Sharks will travel to fellow South African side Bulls in the last four, while Leinster host Glasgow in a repeat of their Champions Cup quarter-final in April, which Leinster won 52-0.

But with Leo Cullen's side still looking winded by their shock defeat by Northampton in the same competition, and Glasgow bolstered by some returning Lions, a similar scoreline is highly unlikely.

The stellar careers of Ben Youngs, Mike Brown and Dan Cole all rumble on for another week at least, but it was goodbye to another great of the English game this weekend as Alex Goode left the stage after his 402nd and final appearance for Saracens.

As discussed last week, rarely in the past has such a high-calibre group of players all retired together, with Danny Care, Anthony Watson and Joe Marler also calling it a day this season.

And it's not just in England. Munster's defeat means two totems of Irish rugby, Conor Murray and Peter O'Mahony, have now retired, with both going down swinging in Durban. Few men have ever given more to the cause in red or green.