Cents boss reflects on season after Bristol result
CENTS manager Tony Bottomley says he is pleased with how his players have performed this season after ending the campaign with a 34-18 defeat at Bristol Sonic, finishing seventh overall.
“I am pleased with the commitments my players have put into this season it was a big step up into the national league and my aim at the start of the season was to be in the top six but failed by 1 point and finished seventh,” Bottomley said.
“But the rugby football league are changing the structure in 2013 and we must wait till December to see what division Centurions will play in.”
The Centurions got off to an excellent start despite only travelling with 15 players.
Early on Bristol were penalised and a quick tap by hooker Ryan Kambouris caught the defence cold before Nick Woolley sent full-back Alessandro Ricci in at the corner and Gareth Waters converted.
Bristol started to put pressure on the Centurions’ line and kicked the ball on the sixth tackle and the visitors were forced to drop out from under their posts.
Bristol regathered the ball and found a hole on the left hand side of the defence and scored in the corner.
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From the kick-off the Centurions pressured the Bristol line and broke the defence but the referee pulled up the Cents for obstruction and from the penalty Bristol made good ground with the kick and three good drives by their forwards gave them breathing space with a 10-6 lead.
This seemed to wake the Centurions up and they put some heavy pressure on the Bristol defence and finally broke it when prop Dylan Rampling breezed past four defenders before setting up Waters to give the Cents a two point lead.
Bristol scored before the interval after a long kick took a fortunate bounce and fell to a home player who dotted down.
The second half took its toll on the Centurions when reduced to 13 fit players with two players forced off with shoulder injuries.
Bristol took control of the game and ran in four tries in a 15-minute period and this put the game out of Centurions’ reach.
But the visitors did run in a try when centre Mike Benson ran onto a crash ball and ran through some poor tackling by Bristol, which Waters converted but this gave Bristol a 34-18 win.
