Gloucester still alive as they hit back after resting stars
QUARTER-FINAL qualification hopes are still slim, but at least Gloucester stopped the rot of a five-match losing streak to fire up their festive campaign. A bonus-point win thanks to two Tom Marshall tries and one each for Louis Rees-Zammit and Jake Polledri just about keeps their hopes alive in Europe, but as they now have to win in Toulouse and at home to Montpellier in January it will be tough. So did Johan Ackermann rue resting Danny Cipriani, Ben Morgan and Franco Mostert against Montpellier, where their second-string lost by three points? ‘We regret more that we lost against Toulouse,’ said the boss. ‘There will always be regrets in life but you have to live with it. We felt that team could still win in Montpellier. We hope this kick-starts our season but we know it wasn’t perfect.’ Gloucester scored with a fine individual effort down the righthand side from Marshall. But Mark Atkinson managed to trip when a pass to Joe Simpson would have put the scrum-half in and Franco Marais spilled the ball over the line after a rolling maul. That meant Connacht led at the break as Jack Carty popped an excellent offload to full back John Porch for a try and kicked a penalty when their maul was dragged down. But Gloucester were whisked along by a 20mph gale behind them in the second half and Danny Cipriani picked off an interception before finding Rees-Zammit to finish the score. Cipriani converted before Marshall and Thorley were unable to finish off Cipriani chips. But when Kyle Godwin was sent to the sin-bin, full back Marshall exploited the overlap to dummy and score on the right. Cipriani missed the kick but Polledri soon bashed through a weak tackle from Dennis Buckley and Gloucester had the bonuspoint try. With substitute Billy Twelvetrees yellow-carded after persistent Gloucester penalties at last Connacht had their converted try from Quinn Roux but it was not enough for a losing bonus point.