'Important' Bristol start to win at home - Ward
Bristol Bears have yet to win at home in the league this season
- Published
Bristol Bears need to start winning at home, said head coach Dave Ward as the Premiership Women's Rugby returns this weekend.
All three of the Bears' wins in the league this season have come on the road with defeats to Saracens and Harlequins at home.
They return from the two-week league break fifth in the table, five points ahead of Trailfinders a place below them.
"It's really important for us to start winning at home," Ward told ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Radio Bristol.
"It's a massive game for them, it's a massive game for the league and for the players - they're champing at the bit and want to get playing,"
After a few days in freezing temperatures, Saturday in Bristol is forecast to be a washout and with the team playing at their usual home ground of Shaftesbury Park - on a 3G pitch - Ward said the weather would "massively" impact team selection.
"We want to play a fast game even if it's raining, even if it's a little bit cold and we want to run Trailfinders around," Ward added.
"Naturally with wet weather you can have more scrums, you'll have different challenges with that, probably more line-out mauls to defend and probably less of the ball moving past the 12 channel because naturally the conditions do tighten the game up, have we got that third kicking option potentially as well.
"You start to think about substitutions, scrums are attritional, mauls are attritional, you've got to start bringing those players on and you'll probably see that with selection this week."
The Bears lost to Saracens in their last home match, played at Ashton Gate
The Trailfinders match is the first of five consecutive matches for Bristol before Christmas and prop Hollie Cunningham address some of the issues that have arisen from their first set of games.
"It was a good time to have a break where we can regroup, reform," she said.
"We've got a really heavy five-week block coming up so it gives us the chance as players to have a reflection on the previous block and also set ourselves targets for where we want to go moving forward.
"We haven't been able to quite do what we wanted at home but I think we've put them to bed, we've reviewed them. We've been like, 'right these are our pick-ups'. We can do it away so let's do it at home."