Bristol Rugby's Robinson sinks old club Bath

BRISTOL routed Bath in the Guinness A League at Clifton RFC after wing Lee Robinson crossed for a hat-trick of tries against his former club.

Robinson touched down after two and 15 minutes to get Bristol off to a great start in the Monday night match.

Then, with Bath flanker Guy Mercer in the sin-bin, Bristol touched down four tries in the closing 13 minutes of the half, with scores from lock Darren Barry, Robinson, who completed his hat-trick on 33 minutes, centre Greg Barden and No 8 James Phillips.

Fly-half Chris Ashwin kicked five conversions and a penalty to put the hosts 43-0 ahead at the break.

Bristol eased off in the second half, and brought on several less-experienced replacements.

Bath kept going well and scored three tries through second row Steve Pape, replacement hooker Laurence Oven, and centre Mike Ward.

Fly-half Luke Cozens kicked all three conversions.

Bristol played the final 10 minutes with only 14 men after prop Ray Hogan, who was making his comeback from chest injury, went off with a shoulder problem.

Bristol had the final say when Ollie Hayes went over following a Kevin Maggs pass. Ashwin added the conversion to take Bristol past the 50-point barrier.

Meanwhile, head coach Richard Hill believes Bristol have to make life difficult for opposition teams as he tries to solve the club's defence problems.

The club, who are still looking for their first win of the campaign, have shipped 15 tries in six matches this season.

Bristol went ahead twice in the 30-17 defeat at Northampton in the EDF Energy Cup – but they held on to the lead only for short periods.

Hill said: "The story of our season is that we tend to let other teams score within about 15 seconds of receiving the ball. We will work our socks off to get a try and what do we do? We kick, they counter-attack and 15 seconds later we are under our posts.

"Nine out of the 11 tries we have conceded in the Premiership have come directly from first phase, or they've scored within 10 seconds because we've kicked and they've counter-attacked well. Our kick-chase is killing us at the moment.

"We have to get our defensive organisation sorted pretty quickly."

Bristol conceded 394 points in their 2006-07 Premiership campaign – the second best defence in the English elite.

But they have now conceded 138 points in their opening six games this term.

Hill added: "At Northampton, we had taken over two minutes of fantastic rugby to score a try. They then go to the other end for the first time – have a line-out, pick and go twice, spin it out wide and they have a three-on-one overlap. They can walk it over the line.

"That should never happen. They didn't even have to work for it. It is a bit soul-destroying for our players."