With the season virtually wrapped up now, we begin our round-up with Bristol coach and National One's biggest admirer Richard Hill. He spoke to rucked.com
Two more National One signings to round off your recruitment, and not one from Plymouth, what's going on?
Yes we've taken Sam Alford from Launceston and Chris Ashwin from Newbury, we thought it was about time we gave Dawesy (Albion chairman of rugby Graham Dawe) a break!
You must be pleased with how the National One players you signed from Albion last summer have come on?
Ed Barnes and Tom Arscott have both come on nicely, as have a lot of players already here. Alex Clarke has emerged strongly, which has been recognised by the Saxons, Jason Hobson is now one of the leading tight-heads in the league, which is very good for Bristol's future, and the likes of young Iain Grieve demonstrated in our matches against Leicester, Worcester and Saracens that he is well capable of playing Premiership rugby.
And a smaller squad for next year?
Yes, we've had 52 players this season, if you count the 10 from our Academy, which is a lot of bodies, so we'll be cutting that down, although having recently got Peter Bracken and Mario Sambucetti back, who have both missed most of the season, will feel like two extra new signings.
So all ship-shape and Bristol fashion, then...
This season has gone pretty much as we'd expected, to be honest. When we started our preparations we assumed it was going to be pretty tough with the Heineken Cup on top of everything else. In the end our Heineken Cup campaign was pretty successful considering it was the first time many of our players had been in it, and we were three from four at one stage and sitting at the top of the Pool with every chance of going up. We played some of our best rugby during that period - beating Harlequins home and away, and Stade Francais.
And towards the end of the season it was noticeable that the side were trying to play more rugby...
We wanted to challenge the players to talk about our attack and everybody has thrown in lots of ideas since Christmas. There was a little bit of confusion, as there is in any teething process, about what exactly works and what doesn't, and further discussions will take place about how we are going to approach our attack next season.
In fact we've already done a huge amount of preparation now for next season, which is really good. All the players and coaches have had a get-together and been away on a de-brief. Everyone feels that whilst the season has been a challenge we've done well and everyone is looking forward to next season.
In Wales...
Yes, it's going to be an interesting one playing in Newport, but I personally know the ground having coached there before and I'm sure the locals will get behind us, especially against the London sides.
It's not the first time you've moved though, is it?
There was the move to our new training facilities at Clifton. We’d always been used to working in a basic environment and suddenly we found ourselves in brand new buildings. We had to move offices and everything else just before this season started, so all in all it wasn’t the best preparation to hit the start of the season as strongly as we needed.
In fact, there's been quite a bit of change going on throughout the season. We've changed our entire medical staff and John Brain coming in as a coach was always going to be an issue, too.
How is he getting on?
John is now is very much settled in with the players, and the players are very much settled in with him and we are looking forward to good continuity over the summer.
Any more forwards joining?
We've actually only got one new forward coming in - Robert Sidoli.
Immediate plans?
Right now? I'm off for a couple of pints of cider!