Spice joined Bristol in the summer from Cardiff Blues

Bristol maintained their 100% record in the Championship with a narrow win over Bedford Blues to take top spot.

Bristol scored two penalties in the first-half through Adrian Jarvis to take a 6-0 lead at the break.

Bedford hit back with a try and the Blues full-back James Pritchard missed two penalties in the final minutes to hand Bristol a win.

"We were pretty average and had three very large bouts of luck," captain Jason Spice told BBC Radio Bristol.

"Certainly if I get chance to buy their kicker a beer I will.

"Coming in at half-time we were pretty happy and quite confident of extending what we thought was a good 6-0 lead."

Bristol spent much of the second-half under pressure conceding a number of penalties along the way.

Fortunately for them Pritchard had a bad afternoon with the boot missing three penalties and a conversion.

"When we string things together we look a million dollars but when we don't we're given it away quite easily, added Spice.

"We've done four weeks of ugly rugby and played forty minutes of really good rugby but we've won.

"We got a lot of areas still to work on but we're not pushing any panic buttons at the moment."

Bristol are now top of the league on 18 points, just a single point ahead of next week's opponents Exeter Chiefs.

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