Bristol turn on the style against Toulon

A brace of tries from winger Lee Robinson helped Bristol record a 37-19 victory over Toulon in their European Challenge Cup Pool 2 clash at Stade Felix Mayol.

A determined defensive display and a handful of well executed tries saw the West Country side clinch a memorable win on French soil and their first success of the year.

The hosts began strongly however a missed drop goal from Sébastien Fauque and a knock on close to the line from centre Gabiriele Lovobalavu were as close as they got to scoring in the early stages.

Toulon did open the scoring with a drop goal from Fauque but Ed Barnes quickly cancelled that out with a penalty before Bristol sprung into life. A long lineout to Nathan Budgett was tapped to Shaun Perry who charged through a gap in the middle before offloading to the supprorting budgett for a superb try that was converted by Barnes.

Bristol stretched their lead when Luke Rooney made a hash of Perry's cross kick and Lee Robinson hacked ahead and won the race to the loose ball to score. Barnes again added the extras. The Bristol fly-half also slotted a penalty before the break but Fauque responded in kind in injury time to make the half time score 20-6.

Bristol needed to start the second half well but probably made as many errors in the first five minutes as they did in the whole of the first period. Barnes was the most serious offender as he knocked on a high pass and was then yellow carded for not releasing.

In his absence, the Toulon backs executed a nice midfield move and Olivier Grimauld scored with Fauque's conversion narrowing the gap to 13-20. Toulon continued to press and a second drop from Fauque made the score 16-20 on the hour.

Barnes added a penalty soon after to give the vistors some breathing room but Toulon still came back with replacement Sonny Bill Williams showing some classy touches in midfield. A tackle off the ball gave Fauque a chance to close the gap once more with just ten minutes remaining but it was as close as Toulon got.

A forward pass near their own line put Toulon under real pressure. With a big blind side to work with, Perry used Robinson as a decoy and powered over before Barnes slotted a difficult conversion.

Finally, with time running out, Bristol again went right with Perry but, this time, he used Robinson who touched down despite the attentions of two tacklers.

Toulon: D Vidal; M Andreu, O Grimaud, G Lovobalavu, L Rooney; S Fauque, A Giacobazz;, B Basteres, G Ribes, D Kubriashvili, Y Maestri [capt], C Delarue, J Suta, C Beal, F Auelua

Replacements: C Liebenberg, N Agnesi, S Toevalu, O Missoup, C Imbert, S Williams, M Henjak

Bristol: L Arscott; L Robinson, Nathen Brew, Neil Brew, T Arscott; E Barnes, S Perry; M Irish, D Blaney, D Crompton, R Winters, R Sidoli, N Budgett, M Salter [capt], D Ward-Smith

Replacements: R Hogan, W Thompson, M Sambucetti, J Phillips, G Beveridge, A Jarvis, L Eves

Referee: Neil Paterson (Scotland)

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