Saturday's Boxing Day Gallagher Premiership results: Harlequins 19-27 Bristol Bears, Exeter Chiefs 28-20 Gloucester, Northampton Saints 29-10 Worcester Warriors. Bath vs London Irish and Newcastle Falcons vs Leicester Tigers were both cancelled due to Covid-19
Saturday 26 December 2020 19:25, UK
Recap all of Saturday's Boxing Day Gallagher Premiership action, as Bristol Bears, Exeter Chiefs and Northampton Saints clinched victories...
Captain Steven Luatua inspired Bristol Bears to a 27-19 victory at Harlequins in the Gallagher Premiership as they came from behind at the Twickenham Stoop.
The former New Zealand international's try gave the Bears the lead for the first time, after an earlier break from him had helped drag them back into the picture following a difficult opening half.
Quins led 9-0 approaching the break but they rarely got out of their own half after it, as Bristol ultimately scored four tries in recording their third league win in a row.
Fiji centre Semi Radradra was making his first Premiership start of the season for Bristol, while winger Louis Lynagh - son of Australia great Michael Lynagh - was making his full league debut for Harlequins.
Exeter bounced back from the outbreak of coronavirus that had swept through their squad to maintain a perfect start to their Gallagher Premiership title defence with a 28-20 victory over Gloucester.
The disruption caused by the spread of Covid-19, forcing the cancellation of their Champions Cup match against Toulouse a week earlier, was evident in a laboured first half.
But inspired by the Simmonds brothers, the double winners ignited to deliver a fourth-successive bonus-point victory and equal the previous best start to a season registered by Saracens in 2018/19.
No 8 Sam Simmonds lifted his try tally for the Premiership campaign to eight with a pair of touchdowns that underpinned the second-half surge, but his brother Joe Simmonds was equally influential at fly-half.
Joe Simmonds completed all four conversions to finish with eight points and the Chiefs captain also went desperately close to scoring a try.
Northampton Saints finally ended their Franklin's Gardens losing streak in their last game of 2020 as they beat Worcester Warriors 29-10 on Boxing Day.
Dan Biggar was in the thick of the action, scoring one try, setting up another for Alex Mitchell and also finding himself in the sin-bin.
Northampton, who had previously lost all eight Gallagher Premiership home games in 2020 and had not won anywhere since beating London Irish at The Stoop in August, finished the job with Mike Haywood pocketing a late bonus-point score.
