Opposition view: 'Winning ugly is important', says Bristol Bears boss Lam
Pat Lam was happy to see his Bristol Bears side 'winning ugly' against Saints on Friday night.
The Bears bounced back from going 15-0 down inside the opening 20 minutes to secure a bonus-point 31-23 success that had lifted them to the top of the Gallagher Premiership, though they are now third after Saturday successes for Bath and Leicester Tigers.
And Lam said: "Winning ugly is important. The good moments were pretty and looked nice, but there were lots of ugly in there.
"I noticed in the warm-up a lot of balls were going down and that carried into the game.
"We talk about being fearless, but the message is fearless not reckless. If you can keep the ball alive it really troubles the defence and we did that.
"If you ask me to fly a plane it would be risky, but if you ask a pilot to do it then it is safe. We work on our skills in training so it might look risky out there, but we train it.
"In training we try and get every player having a 1000 touches and Sean Marsden, our skills coach, is doing a good job."