In the fight to save rugby, Bristol Bears get it

Louis Rees-Zammit’s speed has been compared to Usain Bolt’s, and the Wales wing similarly wasted no time getting to the point as Bristol Bears tried out their “NFL-style post-match media access” after Saturday’s big win over Northampton Saints. “You get instant reactions,” Rees-Zammit said of his club’s new invitation to media to mingle with players 30 minutes after the final whistle. “If you leave it later in the week, it’s not probably the same emotion that you can say.” Rees-Zammit had a taste of the American way with the media during his NFL trials with Kansas City Chiefs and Jacksonville Jaguars – the pictures we have all seen, in real life and the movies, of microphones under the noses of athletes in locker-rooms, sometimes in a state of undress. That wasn’t quite the scene at Ashton Gate on Saturday, partly due to the Bears’ changing rooms not being as large as those in the billionaires’ playground that is American sport. But there was a buzz as I took my place with counterparts from national newspapers and TV and online outlets, and we were joined in a room next door to the Bears’ by coaches and players still in their kit. As Rees-Zammit noted, in America this is regarded as a dip into first impressions. A taste of the gut reaction, rather than a dive into more complex issues.Still, it could only be revelatory to be eye to eye with him, straight after his two tries plus the hat-trick one he was denied when Saints’ Tommy Freeman barged into him – and Rees-Zammit gave Freeman an inflammatory push back as the Englishman was sent to the sin bin. “It was just fire in my belly to score a hat-trick,” Rees-Zammit said. “I’m good friends with Tommy and it’s all love after, but in the moment I was a bit gutted.” Similarly, to hear from Bears’ captain Fitz Harding so soon after he pulled the Bristol chairman Chris Booy into the arms of the team during the pre-match minute of applause that marked the recent passing of Booy’s wife, and lifelong Bristol supporter, Jackie. “Chris was standing with the referee, so I just came to him,” Harding said. “No one cares more about Bristol Bears, Bristol rugby, than Chris Booy. So to be there for him in this really tricky time was really important for us.” Bristol were promoted back to the Premiership in 2018 with the tough challenge of filling the 27,000 capacity Ashton Gate. They quickly became associated with clever social media. In a city with two league football clubs, the Bears averaged crowds of 18,415 across their eight home Prem matches last season, and on Saturday just over 20,000 cheered a defensively superb defeat of the champions. Bristol chief executive Tom Tainton drew critical fire when he told a business conference earlier this year that the Bears are a “marketing agency that plays rugby”, but he had a valid point. Bears boss Pat Lam proposed the access idea, which he squared off with the senior players Ellis Genge, Harding, Steven Luatua and AJ MacGinty. “In 1976, I went to America for the first time as an eight-year-old, and my auntie got me right into LA Rams and LA Dodgers, and I’ve always followed it, and you watch any American sport, they’re in the changing rooms,” Lam said. “We [Bristol] do things a bit different, you know that’s the way we’ve always been. And so I suggested, why don’t we do like the NFL and come in the changing room and just open it up, let the guys talk. “Media for [the players] sometimes is ‘you’ve to do this, this, and this’. I said, no, it’s an opportunity for the media to get to understand you and your messages. So get out there and enjoy it and embrace it.” It might be useful for the away team to follow suit. Rees-Zammit briefly addressed his Henry Pollock-style pulse-check try celebration – “me and Pollock are really close. He’s doing great things for the sport, and if we want to grow this game, we need personalities, and he’s definitely one” – and it would have been handy to hear Pollock’s side. The NFL-style post-match media access is the brainchild of Bears boss Pat Lam (Photo: Getty) Even so, there are important principles attached to this. The Prem says it wants to reach new audiences, and keep the one it has. It’s not a journalist’s job to sell tickets, but the coverage from TV, radio, newspapers and others spreads the word. Bristol’s efforts contrasted positively with a week of Saracens lamely defending their director of rugby Brendan Venter’s aversion to media interviews. Venter has relented after external advice – he was interviewed by TNT Sports before Sunday’s match against Sale Sharks, and will take a midweek press conference as befits the senior coaching voice at his club. With Saracens rarely selling out their 10,000-capacity StoneX Stadium in north London, it looks like they need some help – and Venter as an outstandingly interesting and experienced character should play his part. Returning to the locker room idea, Lam joked about scrum-half Harry Randall being isolated with his top off. The NFL make provision for towels and robes to protect anything literally cheeky making it on-screen. When some of their players agitated to get rid of the access last year, they were ordered to get on with it. The point is that NFL’s media regulations support a journalist’s right to ask questions, and therefore bring the outside world in, albeit in a controlled environment. Gareth Southgate’s England football team went against the grain of control and distance before the 2018 World Cup, laying on a press session with the whole squad that was well received by the media. In rugby, I was around in the early professional days when England, among others, allowed reporters into changing rooms. Read more Big read: Why Nick Knowles is doing it himself at a rugby club Exclusive: Saracens risk more fines after ‘wine consultant’ stunt angers Prem I remember the awed look on the face of fly-half Mike Catt, still in his muddied shorts, as he told us how he would given his best performance in an England shirt, in Argentina. So in a sense Bristol aren’t trying anything new. But well done to them, anyway. There isn’t a team on the planet – from the billionaires of the States to the park pitches of British Sunday mornings, and the Prem somewhere in between – who wouldn’t gain from showing off their players’ and coaches’ knowledge and personalities, and telling us more about their sport and the lives they lead.