Bristol Rugby have got to be more clinical, says Adams

Two-try debutant Jack Adams says Bristol Rugby have no excuses for their poor performance at Birmingham & Solihull – and must pick up their standards quickly.

The former Gloucester centre crossed twice – and came agonisingly close to a debut hat-trick – as Bristol won 40-36 at Sharmans Cross Road.

The victory was their second from two Championship matches, and Paul Hull's men have taken nine points from a possible 10.

But the performance was littered with errors as Bristol made hard work of seeing off last season's National League Two champions.

"We got the five points, which is what we were aiming for, but the way we played was not how we wanted to win it," said Adams. "We've got to be so much more clinical in a lot of areas. We'll have a meeting on Monday and I'm sure we'll see a lot of drastic things we want to change for the next game.

"We're the Premiership team who have come down and we want to be seen across the country as still being a Premiership team.

"We don't want our standards to drop – and in this game we let them slip, whether it was through expecting to win, pressure, nerves or whatever. But we can't make excuses, it was all down to ourselves.

"We should have done a lot better. We were really looking forward to this, especially when we turned up and there was bright sunshine. You couldn't get more perfect conditions, so to play the way we did was disappointing."

Adams missed Bristol Rugby's two pre-season matches and their opening Championship game with a shoulder injury – but was the sharpest player on the pitch as he made an impressive debut.

And the 22-year-old said: "Just playing rugby again will be really good for my confidence.

"It was a long pre-season with being injured, so it was good to get my frustrations out on the pitch and get a couple of tries. It's a nice way to start off in a Bristol shirt."

Having already bagged two tries, he came close to a third but knocked on with the line in sight after taking a pass from replacement fly-half Mark Davies.

"The ball was passed pretty quickly across me and I got my fingertips to it but it slipped out of my grasp," said Adams.

"If I had jumped or dived and made it look pretty, perhaps I could have got there, but we still got the win."