Bristol keep cup hopes alive

The miserable Twickenham weather was unable to dampen West Country spirits as Bristol put paid to Harlequins' chances of progressing to the Heineken Cup quarter-finals.

Bristol kept up the momentum of their home victory over Stade Francais and their Cup dreams alive with a 3-17 win over their London hosts.

An ill-tempered opening 20 minutes of this must-win encounter saw little rugby played as both sides grappled with the soggy conditions and each other.

But when Quins pulled down a scrum inside their own 22 the visitors were handed the chance to score the first points of the game.

Pressure

Fly-half David Hill missed but Bristol kept up the pressure and were consequently rewarded with two tries in as many minutes midway through the half.

The first came from openside Alfie To'oalo who crashed over for the visitors from five metres after a line-out take by Roy Winters.

Samoan wing David Lemi provided the second, intercepting a looped pass from De Wet Barry to beat David Strettle in a 65-metre race for the line.

Hill added the extras but Quins reduced the gap three minutes later thanks to a superb 40-metre drop goal from scrum-half Danny Care.

Slippery

Tempers did not improve throughout the match and referee Peter Allan twice had to call the captains over for lectures on discipline.

With the rain intensifying at the start of the second half Bristol were quick to make use of the slippery surface.

Hill hacked a ball through close to the Quins line allowing full-back Luke Arscott to barge in front of Mike Brown and flop on the ball to slide over.

Bristol lost the impressive To'oalo 13 minutes into the second period but, when Quins lock Ollie Kohn was sin-binned for coming round the side of a ruck, were soon a man up.

It was not until the final 10 minutes that Quins were able to build any sort of sustained pressure in the Bristol 22.

But they were unable to capitalise and head west to face Bristol again next weekend hoping for more than just an improvement in the weather.