Bristol Rugby signed off from their pre-season programme with a second straight victory – but Paul Hull will have plenty to keep him busy over the next fortnight.

Bristol do not play again before they open their Championship campaign against London Welsh at the Memorial Stadium on September 6 – and the head coach is likely to be very busy during the next 13 days.

Hull's team outscored their lower-division opponents by four tries to one – and provided some eye-catching moments of individual excellence.

Yet Bristol lacked cohesion and shipped a raft of second-half penalties that would undoubtedly have been punished by more clinical opposition.

Hull knows exactly what he and his players must work on – and ball retention and the new law governing the ruck will be high on his agenda when he sits his players down today.

"There were some good individual performances out there and some individual flair, but we're trying to get the team cohesion working," said Hull.

"You've got to have the breakdown and ball retention if you're going to have flow to your game – and so far we haven't had flow to our game.

"There was a lot of ambition out there – but with ambition you need execution. We've got to take some positives from this, but we'll look at the negatives."

Bristol looked slick in attack at times during a one-sided first half, in which they built a 21-3 lead courtesy of tries from Dan Norton, Adrian Jarvis and Lee Robinson.

Norton, a summer recruit from Gloucester, out-sprinted the last defender to pounce on a perfect kick through from Tom Arscott, before Jarvis' smart inside break capped a period of Bristol dominance.

Newbury lost prop Tom Fidler to the sin-bin as a result of persistent infringing at the ruck and set-piece from the home side, and winger Robinson powered over following Jarvis' pass to give his side a commanding half-time lead.

But, where Newbury had found themselves on the wrong side of the referee's whistle during the opening period, it was Bristol who were repeatedly punished after the interval. As a result, they failed to build any rhythm and spent much of the second half on the back foot.

Flanker James Phillips saw yellow for killing the ball – and while he was off the field Matt Williams raced on to Mitch Burton's kick over the top to score a try for Newbury.

Despite lengthy periods of possession deep in Bristol territory, Newbury could not add a further score, but Norton's second try – a twisting, darting solo run from 45 metres – did little to paper over the cracks of an unconvincing display. With frustration mounting, Bristol lost replacement scrum- half Robbie Shaw to a yellow card for over-zealous use of the boot at a ruck in the closing minutes.

"These things happen and I think the players were getting frustrated themselves, because they knew they weren't performing as a group," said Hull of the two sin-binnings for his players.

"We had the rub of the green in the first half with the penalty-count but we didn't have it in the second half."

Hull purposely built his side's pre-season around two friendly fixtures – and despite their rustiness so far, he is happy to stick with the original plan.

"I think we've just got to stick to what we set out," he said.

"We've got two full weeks before the first game and we can work on things in training.

"And leading up to that first league game we'll have more of a settled squad, because we've tried to give everyone a run-out in pre-season. It's a long season – and with the play-offs starting on March 13, we've got a long way to go yet.

"We were playing pre-season rugby out there, we weren't playing league rugby. When you play league rugby, you kick a little bit more and play for field position; you play a tighter game at times and open up at times.

"I think when we focus our minds into proper winning rugby, hopefully those errors will be minimised. We want to have good performances, but Newbury got into us very well and once again we had trouble at the breakdown.

"It was a win but I think we're all a little bit disappointed with the way we performed."

Bristol Rugby: T Arscott (S Alford 77); L Robinson (M Turner 55), L Eves, J Fatialofa (L Arscott 68), D Norton; A Jarvis (C Ashwin 68), J Spice (capt) (R Shaw 61); M Irish (A Clarke 68), R Johnson (D Blaney 41), D Crompton (W Thompson 41), M Sambucetti, N Budgett (R Winters 61), J Phillips (B Bedes 58), J Merriman (G Watkins 77), D Montagu.

Scorers: Tries – Norton (2), Jarvis, Robinson. Cons – Jarvis (3).

Sin-binned: Phillips (48-58, persistent infringement), Shaw (75, stamping).

Newbury scorers: Try – Williams. Pen – Burton.