Cherry blossom
Gloucester fight back to overcome Bristol in derby clash
There was no escaping the sense of expectation which enveloped the sell-out Kingsholm crowd before kick-off of Gloucester’s encounter against newly-promoted West Country rivals Bristol Bears.
There must have been a sense of bitter deja vu for the visitors as they went into half time leading, just as they had last week at Saracens, only to be blown away in the second half with a five-try performance by Gloucester.
As with the previous round George Smith, who was shown red at Allianz Park, was sent to the sin bin, which again disrupted the game. But it has sent a warning regarding Bristol’s strong but often cynical play in contact.
Bristol head coach Pat Lam bemoaned his side’s high penalty count of 20-8 as the deciding factor in their second half demise.
“We have to take a hard look at our discipline because when you give away penalties, that gives them an easy way back into our half,” he said. “The key thing after half time, it wasn’t just our discipline but it was our core skills as well, catch, pass, our decision making.”
An entertaining game should be expected when both fly-halves, Danny Cipriani and Ian Madigan, have such reputations for dynamism and creativity. And the two players contributed to fast tempo and end to end rugby in the opening half. While Cipriani has long had the reputation of being English rugby’s controversial thwarted darling, in Ireland and at Leinster, Madigan was in the shadow of British and Irish Lion Jonathan Sexton.
The 29-year-old’s flair often had him branded as “Madigan the maverick” in his home country but he has not courted the same off-field controversy as Cipriani.
It was Madigan who made a significant contribution to his side’s opening try, a clever grubber from the fly-half was plucked by Steven Luatua on the wing to set up three times capped Wallaby wing Luke Morahan, who sprinted down the wing to score the first try of the night.
Gloucester head coach Johan Ackerman was frank in his assessment of Cipriani’s first half-performance. “I think he was good but I don’t think he was at his best,” he said. “I think defensively Danny and the whole team didn’t really get stuck in during the first half. I also believe there were opportunities for us to relieve the pressure through maybe a good kick but we persisted on playing even though the structure wasn’t there.
“So, it is about getting that balance, but there were times that he got the ball away, in the way only Danny can get the ball away.”
Gloucester spent much of the final 10 minutes of the opening half close to the Bristol line but looked to lack composure and were also thwarted by a strong Bristol defence, leaving the half-time scoreline 10-3 to the visitors.
Ackermann admitted his players had to regroup but there apparently was not too much of a harsh halftime team talk as they knew where their game was flawed. He said: “I think the players knew they weren’t performing well, it was quite easy to speak to them at half time. It was the mental and physical side which we needed to fix. The guys knew they had a responsibility to the team and they took it to heart.”
Gloucester rapidly atoned for their earlier fruitless attacking efforts in the opening moments of the second half as new-signing Gerbrandt Grobler charged over. The South African has split opinions since moving to the Northern Hemisphere, first to Racing in the Top 14 and then to Munster after being banned for using the steroid drostanolone in 2015.
Gloucester’s growth in the game was also helped when Bristol’s former Australia Test-centurion Smith was shown a yellow card by referee Tom Foley. Bristol had been pushing the line at the breakdown through the first half and on his third warning Smith paid the price.
The partisan crowd who had been somewhat silenced by Bristol’s earlier dominance erupted when wing Charlie Sharples crossed. Sharples then secured his brace at 55 minutes, putting his side nine points ahead prompting a raft of changes from Bristol head coach Lam. One of those to leave the field was Madigan.
Captain and second row Ed Slater sealed his side’s bonus point try with 15 minutes left, all the tries scored in the second half.
With just over 10 minutes to go, Gloucester got to the 30-point mark via Twelvetrees’ penalty and then finished on a high with a try from Banahan, who had scored the crucial final one in his side’s dramatic draw against Bath last week.