PAT LAM woke his Bears from their winter slumber with a furious Alex Ferguson- style “hairdryer” blast to roust them into a second-half comeback to beat Harlequins at The Twickenham Stoop.
The director of rugby revealed he flew into a dressing room rage and told his side to “get on the bus or get playing properly!”.
It worked as Bristol picked up a bonus point 27-19 win to finish the year second in the table behind Exeter.
Lam, whose side trailed 9-0 at one stage, fumed: “It was the most awful first 40 minutes I've seen from them.
“We were hopeless and it couldn't go on. So it was a straight choice between two doors. I told them they could either take the exit door, get on the bus and go straight home or they can take the one back out there onto the field by pulling themselves together, play the way we came here to play, and sort it out.
“Christmas was yesterday and we hadn't just come here to walk around the place. We came here for hard work and to try and win a game. I was just very disappointed that we had played so poorly. We were not good at all.”
There was a man-of-thematch performance by dual qualified scrum-half Harry Randall who will have reminded Eddie Jones and Wayne Pivac of his ability.
Elsewhere, champions Exeter survived a fearsome late battering fom Gloucester to hold out 28-20 and maintain their perfect start to the season with 20 points from their first four games.
Gloucester head coach George Skivington said: “It's disappointing to come to the double champs and go so close.
“We scored two tries and should have scored a couple more save for a little inaccuracy, but you can't fault the fight and the way we are building.” There had been some doubt about the game taking place after Exeter's recent positive Covid results and director of rugby Rod Baxter said: “It wasn't until 11.30pm Christmas Eve I was able to phone (chairman) Tony Rowe with news that the latest tests had come back 100 per cent negative and we could stage the game with confidence.”
Bottom club Northampton Saints finally found winning form to beat Worcester Warriors and leapfrog them at the bottom of the table.
It was Saints' first victory in 14 attempts and their inspirational fly-half Dan Biggar said: “It was a massive win for us. We can't put a finger on why we have struggled since returning from the first Covid lockdown.”
