{"id":551227,"date":"2026-04-26T06:37:28","date_gmt":"2026-04-26T06:37:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/551227\/"},"modified":"2026-04-26T06:37:28","modified_gmt":"2026-04-26T06:37:28","slug":"gallagher-prem-bristol-hammer-rock-bottom-newcastle-to-move-ahead-of-exeter-and-into-top-four-rugby-union-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/551227\/","title":{"rendered":"Gallagher Prem: Bristol hammer rock-bottom Newcastle to move ahead of Exeter and into top four | Rugby Union News"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Bristol moved above Exeter and into the top four of the Gallagher Prem with a thumping 52-19 win over rock-bottom Newcastle at Kingston Park.<\/p>\n<p>The win came at a cost for Bristol, however, with Joe Batley a late withdrawal a few minutes before kick-off and Rich Lane limping off immediately after opening the scoring.<\/p>\n<p>Gabriel Oghre and Benjamin Grondona also hobbled off, as did Noah Heward after he bagged Bristol&#8217;s bonus-point try.<\/p>\n<p>        Twitter<\/p>\n<p>                This content is provided by Twitter, which may be using cookies and other technologies.<br \/>\n                To show you this content, we need your permission to use cookies.<br \/>\n                You can use the buttons below to amend your preferences to enable Twitter cookies or to allow those cookies just once.<br \/>\n                You can change your settings at any time via the <a href=\"#privacy-options\">Privacy Options<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>                Unfortunately we have been unable to verify if you have consented to Twitter cookies.<br \/>\n                To view this content you can use the button below to allow Twitter cookies for this session only.<\/p>\n<p>                <a href=\"#\" class=\"ui-consent-roadblock-body__link ui-consent-roadblock-permanently\" data-single-click-vendor-name=\"twitter\" data-show-on-fallback=\"false\" data-testid=\"consent-roadblock-allow\">Enable Cookies<\/a><br \/>\n                <a href=\"#\" class=\"ui-consent-roadblock-body__link ui-consent-roadblock-once\" data-single-click-vendor-name=\"twitter\" data-testid=\"consent-roadblock-allow-once\">Allow Cookies Once<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Benhard Janse van Rensburg bagged a brace before Harry Thacker rubberstamped an emphatic Bristol win, which puts them one point ahead of play-off rivals Exeter, who can regain fourth spot when they travel to Gloucester on Sunday.<\/p>\n<p>This was a 13th defeat in 14 matches for Newcastle, who battled hard but were repeatedly broken open from the off.<\/p>\n<p>Former Newcastle centre Matias Moroni&#8217;s touch of class helped put Bristol ahead, with the Argentinian chipping and recollecting from a long chase before an instinctive pass back inside allowed Lane to score.<\/p>\n<p>Lane immediately made way, the full-back having seemingly tweaked his hamstring while scoring, although straight from the kick-off his stand-in Kalaveti Ravouvou ran in on the diagonal with his first touch after Heward collected the loose ball and charged through a gap.<\/p>\n<p>When scrum-half Harry Randall&#8217;s clearance kick was intercepted, Newcastle got on the board as they went through the phases before Adam Brocklebank burrowed over after two team-mates were held up.<\/p>\n<p>Tom Jordan showed a clean pair of heels to round Brocklebank and dot down after 25 minutes, while he then added the third of his four conversions for a 21-5 lead before hooker Oghre and number eight Grondona went off on the half hour mark.<\/p>\n<p>Gabriel Ibitoye&#8217;s last-gasp challenge denied Alex Hearle an 80-metre try and Bristol regrouped during the interval, with Heward darting over on the left for the visitors&#8217; bonus-point try, finishing a move started by Jordan piercing a gap in Newcastle&#8217;s line before sprinting 40 metres.<\/p>\n<p>Moroni also touched down on the left within five minutes of the restart but, after Heward trudged off, Ben Healy&#8217;s cross-field kick allowed Christian Wade to steal in for Newcastle&#8217;s second try.<\/p>\n<p>Janse van Rensburg teed up Heward and Moroni to score and the South African deservedly got one himself, shrugging off a couple of challenges to dive over before James Williams took on kicking duties to put Bristol 40-12 ahead.<\/p>\n<p>After Josh Hodge converted his own score for Newcastle, Janse van Rensburg was in again on the right for Bristol&#8217;s seventh try, but Sam Wolstenholme failed to bring up their half-century of points when he dropped the ball with the try line at his mercy.<\/p>\n<p>However, a maul from the lineout in the final minute led to Thacker touching down and Williams added the extras.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bristol moved above Exeter and into the top four of the Gallagher Prem with a thumping 52-19 win&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":551228,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-551227","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551227","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=551227"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551227\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/551228"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=551227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=551227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=551227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}