Bristol Rugby 21 Leeds Carnegie 17: Lowes can see plenty of positives for Leeds in narrow loss

A young Leeds side, including six debutants, led for the majority of the game thanks to tries from Jake Armstrong and Jarad Williams while fly-half Glyn Hughes marked his return to the side with two conversions and penalty.

Lowes said: “I thought we showed a lot of character out there. Defensively we showed good shape and, but for a couple of lapses, we were able to cope with what they threw at us.

“I thought our young guys did not look out of place and our senior players in Matt Smith, Nathan Hannay, Glyn Hughes and James Doherty led the team extremely well.

“We will take a lot of confidence from this game into next week’s game with Gala at York.”

The game started badly for Leeds when Sam Lockwood was sin-binned for a series of offences at the scrum. The decision seemed harsh as Lockwood was causing his opposite number real problems and it was telling when the Bristol man was taken off tactically by Andy Robinson when Lockwood returned from the bin.

Just before Leeds got numerical parity, Bristol capitalised on Leeds’s error on their own line. The ball squeezed out of a ruck and hooker Rhys Lawrence dived to score the opening try. Nicky Robinson added the conversion to give his side a 7-0 lead.

Leeds rallied and finished the half strongly. A clever box kick from James Doherty penned Bristol near their line and as they tried to clear the ball from the ensuing line-out, scrum-half Callum Braley slipped under pressure from Jack Ramshaw and Jake Armstrong touched down the loose ball. Hughes added an excellent conversion and a later penalty to give his side a 10-7 lead at the break.

That was increased when No 8 Jarad Williams peeled off the back of a line-out and powered his way over for a try. Hughes converted to give his side a 10-point lead midway through the second half.

However, Bristol responded in the final quarter and scored through replacement winger Andy Short and second row Ben Glynn. Former Leeds player Adrian Jarvis converted both to give the home side a 21-17 lead.

Leeds produced a last-ditch effort but, despite some great skill to keep the ball alive, Bristol’s defence proved resilient.

Bristol: Slowik, Speight, Otto (Short, 53), Carpenter, Amesbury, Robinson (Jarvis, 53), Braley (Grindal, 53) Lilley, Lawrence, Cortes (Douglas, 35), Sambucetti (Joyce, 60), Glynn, Grieve, Pennycook (Uren, 60), Eadie

Leeds Carnegie: Georgiou (Griffin, 70), Martey, Lucock, Barker, Goss, Hughes, J Doherty, Lockwood (Imiolek, 40), Graham (J Walker, 70), Armstrong (Beech, 40), Smith, Hannay, Ramshaw (Brady, 71), C Walker (Doyle, 55), Williams

Referee: Maiteo Liperini (Italy).