Razor-sharp Thorley rips poor Tigers to shreds
OLLIE Thorley scored two breathtaking tries to celebrate his return to Premiership rugby as Gloucester produced a season’s best performance.
Due to a number of niggling injuries, Thorley has been absent from league rugby for nine months but his return was worth the wait.
First a pre-planned move with Danny Cipriani saw him evade George Worth on a 55m run to the line before he brought the house down with his second when Ben Morgan skilfully sent him away on a 90m dash.
Thorley said: “I’m 110 per cent speed so I’ve been practising with Danny (Cipriani) on slowing down before reaccelerating in order to manipulate defenders.
“It’s always pleasing when a training move comes off with Danny’s pass putting me through the gap and it was an awesome piece of vision from Ben (Morgan) to put me into space.”
Thorley was at the forefront of a committed 80 minute performance from a Gloucester side who thrilled in attack and were still able to display admirable resilience in defence when Tigers threatened to come back into contention.
Josh Hohneck and James Hanson were the pick of a home pack which outbattled their Leicester counterparts for whom Tom Youngs was the only one to perform with doggedness.
The gap between the respective back divisions was even wider. After a rusty display last week, Willi Heinz was much improved to allow Cipriani to display his distribution skills so Billy Twelvetrees and wings Matt Banahan and Thorley benefitted to regularly threaten the Leicester defence.
Hence Tigers spent much of the night on the back foot, but when presented with opportunities, their backs lacked spark and creation so this was a match from which they could take very little.
Cipriani and Joe Ford exchanged early penalties before Ford was badly offtarget with a 45 metre effort as the game struggled to come to life.
It took 15 minutes before there was an attacking threat but then Mark Atkinson brought the crowd to its feet by tearing the defence to shreds to send Jason Woodward racing over.
Ford knocked over his second penalty before Gloucester took control of the half by scoring two tries to lead 22-6 at the interval.
A succession of forward drives softened up Leicester to give Banahan an overlap try and, after the visitors had lost Guy Thompson who was stretchered off with a leg injury, Fraser Balmain drove over from close range.
Gloucester lost the influential Atkinson just before the break with an injury but it didn’t stop their momentum as, soon after the restart, Thorley scored his first.
Moments later, the home side appeared to have collected a fifth try when superb inter-passing from Cipriani, Banahan and Heinz sent Woodward over but subsequent replays revealed a couple of forward passes and the score was ruled out.
Leicester picked up their first try when Matt Williams finished off a driving line-out before England squad member Morgan returned following a neck injury to play the final quarter.
Cipriani was just short with a long distance penalty before Thorley’s superb second sent the crowd into raptures.