Premiership: Harlequins beat Bristol Bears 36-26 for fourth straight win

Ross Chisholm (right) touched down for Harlequins' first try against Bristol at The Stoop

Harlequins recorded a fourth Premiership win in a row for the first time since 2014 as they beat Bristol.

Ross Chisholm, Marcus Smith, Mike Brown and Joe Marchant secured a bonus point and a 26-12 lead by half-time.

But Bristol had twice led in the opening quarter through tries from Charles Piutau and Alapati Leiua.

Callum Sheedy and Leiua went over in the second half to get Bristol a bonus point of their own, but Nathan Earle bagged a fifth try for Quins late on.

Harlequins moved back up to third above Gloucester, who leapfrogged them on Friday with victory against Saracens.

Paul Gustard's side are the form team in the competition having picked up 25 points from their past seven matches, including five straight home wins.

• Exeter 35-17 Newcastle

• Northampton 27-26 Bath

• Wasps 18-24 Sale

• Premiership table

Bristol are still searching for a first away victory of the season and have won just twice in their past 10 Premiership games.

They stay third from bottom, but could slip a place if Worcester beat Leicester on Sunday.

Mike Brown's try, his second in as many games, took his career tally to 88 and to within one of Harlequins all-time club record scorer Ugo Monye.

Harlequins head of rugby Paul Gustard told BBC Radio London:

"My opinion is we concede two early tries through defensive negligence, through poor kick-chase, through poor execution of a kick and then we dominate the game for 50 minutes.

"We then concede again after the game was well and truly won. Apart from the first 10 minutes and the last 10 minutes, we were the dominant team.

"We're third because we've got the third most wins, the third most bonus points, we're three points ahead of Gloucester.

"But, there's still room for improvement because we're not first or second and we're letting in too many soft tries at the moment."

Bristol head coach Pat Lam told BBC Radio Bristol:

"It showed a lot of character from the boys to pull off a set play move with two minutes to go to get us that fourth try.

"That point's going to be crucial as we know every single point is, so there's a lot of positives to take away from the game.

"We can compete. This Quins side is in form and humming nicely, but we really ran them close despite gifting them some soft tries.

"It doesn't mean we're satisfied, there's a lot of things we can do better."

Harlequins: Brown; Earle, Marchant, Tapuai, R Chisholm; Smith, Mulchrone; Marler, Elia, Collier, Glynn, Horwill (co-capt), Clifford, Robshaw (co-capt), Dombrandt.

Replacements: Ward, Boyce, Swainston, Merrick, J Chisholm, Lewis, Lang, Saili.

Bristol: C Piutau; Daniels, O'Conor, S Piutau (co-capt), Leiua; Sheedy, Randall; Woolmore, Parry, Afoa, Batley, Vui, Luatua, Smith, Crane (co-capt).

Replacements: Thacker, Y Thomas, Thiede, Haining, D Thomas, Uren, Madigan, Protheroe.

Referee: Tom Foley.

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