Bears see off Irish to go top

PAT LAM watched his Bears claw their way to the top of the Premiership tree with England duo Harry Randall and Ellis Genge inspiring a bonus-point win over Irish.

But the Bristol boss was still far from ecstatic with his side for almost throwing victory away near the death and having to cling on by the skin of their teeth to win 40-36.

‘There are some good things but it is a mental game too and we were not on it as much as we were against Bath. Our defence has improved massivelyand gone to another level even if we conceded five tries today. We know that defence wins you the big prizes and we are getting there.’

Meanwhile, Freddie Steward came back with a bang scoring a hat-trick as Leicester mauled 12-man Northampton 41-21.

Steward, a star on England’s summer tour to Australia, scored his first just before the break to send Leicester in 14-10 down. Saints stretched their lead to 21-10 thanks to Alex Coles but then they had three players yellow-carded in nine minutes. Saints had prop Emmanuel Iyogun, No.8 Juarne Augustus and scrum-half Alex Mitchell all off the pitch as Tigers ran riot in the final quarter.

Elsewhere, Saracens saw a 20-10 lead disintegrate as Gloucester scored 26 unanswered points by using their maul to expose the hosts’ Achilles heel. But in a sudden and complete role reversal the maul then became Sarries’ weapon, which they used to score their last three tries.

Gloucester had appeared destined for victory until they abruptly joined Saracens in proving incapable of defending the maul. As the final whistle blew Saracens had survived the scare to win 41-39.