Gloucester can’t cope with power of Steffon
STEFFON Armitage reminded England of his talents by inspiring Pau to a shock victory and deal a hammer blow to Gloucester’s chances of claiming a third European Challenge Cup.
Gloucester, winners in 2006 and 2015, were firm favourites to top Pool 3 but were convincingly beaten as Pau’s victory secured a home quarter-final.
Armitage last played for an English club back in 2011, when he won the last of his five Test caps but since then England have steadfastly failed to consider him.
At 32 there is no chance of an international recall but Armitage’s alertness saw him score a crucial try to add to an all-action performance at the breakdown.
Pau head coach, former Gloucester player, Simon Mannnix, said: “Steffon was outstanding and it’s great to see him back home performing at such a level of real quality and we got our just desserts tonight.”
Nobody could argue with Mannix as Pau were better in all areas. Armitage and his impressive cohorts in the back row, Ben Mowen and Sean Dougall, were everywhere, allowing halfbacks Colin Slade and Thibault Daubagna armchair rides.
Charly Malie was an enterprising full-back and powerful wing, Watisoni Votu, could easily have had a hat-trick if luck had gone his way, which was in stark contrast to Gloucester for whom there were few plusses.
Jason Woodward made one brilliant 60m run out of defence, Ollie Thorley was spirited but too many of their key players disappointed with anonymous performances from Ben Vellacott, Ben Morgan and Ross Moriarty.
Gloucester’s head coach, Johan Ackermann couldn’t hide his frustration by substituting six players in one hit after conceding the third try.
He said: “We’ll have a long look at ourselves as we didn’t respect the ball, lacked composure and had a large error count.
“We qualified for the next round but we now have to do it the hard way although we have enough talent to progress further in this competition.”
Pau dominated the opening minutes but it was the hosts who picked up the first score.
An excellent touch-finder from Burns secured a platform in the visitors 22 from which Andy Symons burst strongly before Jeremy Thrush forced his way over.
Pau regrouped to dominate the remainder of the half and should have been
further ahead than 13-7 at the interval.
Daubagna and Votu inter-passed cleverly but Votu dropped the scoring pass then Thorley got back to save a certain try before Mowden raced 60 metres to threaten the try-line.
However Pau were rewarded with two penalties from Slade – he missed another straightforward attempt – and the try from Armitage when Richard Hibbard’s long throw on Gloucester’s line was seized upon by the No.8.
After the restart, Twelvetrees kicked a penalty but Pau responded with two tries in five minutes.
First Frank Halai was sent through a gap for an unopposed 20m run before a poor kick from Burns saw Malie evade weak tackling to send Lourens Adriaanse over.
Gloucester threw on their replacements and one of them, Callum Braley, darted over before Pau sealed victory when Slade’s break created a try for Daniel Ramsay with Jake Polledri’s late effort just a consolation.