Bristol overcame a nasty-looking head injury to the England centre Benhard Janse van Rensburg to clinch an impressive victory over Northampton and maintain their flying start to the season with Louis Rees-Zammit in fine finishing form, helping himself to a double.

Van Rensburg received lengthy treatment and was taken off on a stretcher just before half-time and appeared to be knocked out cold. The South-African born centre is all-action, but suffered the same fate during England's summer victory over Argentina. Van Rensburg was seen by the Bristol dug out in the second half, however, allaying fears that the injury was serious.

Bristol coped with his absence admirably and, with Rees-Zammit scoring two of their six tries, the Bears clinched back-to-back victories to start the season for the first time since 2023. Gabriel Oghre, Tom Jordan and the excellent Harry Randall were also on the scoresheet, while the Bears were awarded a late penalty try, but perhaps most pleasing for Pat Lam will be the Bears' defensive effort.

For the champions, it was a mixed bag. For the first hour, pretty much everything that could go wrong, did. Balls were dropped, sitters were missed and tries were disallowed. Henry Pollock began brightly but endured a disappointing afternoon too, taking a painful looking low blow in the first half for good measure.

It was all a far cry from when they stuck 94 points on Bristol on home soil back in May - a result that no doubt served as motivation for the Bears here. Then came Alex Mitchell from the replacements bench and suddenly Northampton threatened the unlikeliest of comebacks.

Bristol's first try gave the Bears faithful all the more reason to cheer - pantomime villain Pollock slipping in contact and promptly turned over by the excellent Fitz Harding. Williams did not miss this time and from the ensuing driving maul, Oghre dotted down.

Northampton hit back almost immediately with the ever dangerous George Hendy going over on the left. It was a well-worked move, Pollock running a loop and showing his devastating pass to put his left winger clear.

Williams added a straightforward three-pointer at goal before Bristol's second try rounded off a concerted period of pressure. Their maul has developed into a fearsome weapon but while Northampton did well to withstand it, they could not keep their discipline as Bristol sought the killer blow. Jordan's score was ruled out for a Harry Randall knock-on in the build-up but Rees-Zammit eventually went over after a smart pass from Oghre.

Northampton had endured a pretty torrid first 39 minutes all told and Ollie Sleightholme's fumble on the right with the try-line beckoning just about summed up their first-half performance. They probed just before the interval, however, and it was then that Van Rensburg's head struck a stray knee.

The match restarted with a Northampton scrum. Another strike move, another try for Hendy and suddenly a one-point game at half-time. To the Bears' credit, however, they did not allow Van Rensburg's injury to knock the stuffing out of them. Bristol were first across the whitewash in the second half with Jordan stretching to the line after a fine break from Rees-Zammit in midfield had taken the hosts into the 22. And they gave themselves breathing space when Randall sniped over from close range.

Rees-Zammit's second came with a slice of good fortune. A Williams penalty struck the post but such was the ferocity of Pedro Rubiolo's tackle that Bristol were awarded a five-metre scrum and soon Rees-Zammit was splashing over. A 20-point lead with 20 minutes to go should have meant for plain sailing but Mitchell scooted under the posts to give Northampton hope of a comeback.

Mitchell, a 53rd-minute replacement, was in inspired form and was the spark behind Northampton's fourth try, finished by Josh Kemeny in the left corner. Smith pulled the conversion, however, keeping Bristol's lead at eight points and after Northampton's replacement prop Ion Neculai was shown a yellow card, the Bears finished the game on top.

Max Pepper had a try disallowed before Rees-Zammit was cynically denied a hat-trick by Tommy Freeman, who was sent to the sin-bin for body-checking the Bristol winger with referee Ian Tempest choosing to award a penalty try.