‘Clunky’ display was like a friendly, says Skivington

» TRY as they might, Gloucester were unable to make up for their terrible start at Kingsholm, losing 27-21 to Newcastle Falcons on Saturday.

Bottom of the table at kick-off, the Falcons built up a 24-0 lead in the first 35 minutes but a listless Gloucester rose from their slumbers to dominate a second half which saw four Newcastle players sin-binned.

Adam Radwan, George Mcguigan and Callum Chick scored their tries. Brett Connon converted all three and added two penalties.

Tom Seabrook and Cam Jordan scored Gloucester’s tries, both converted by George Barton, in addition to a penalty try.

Gloucester head coach George Skivington cut a frustrated figure. He said: “We were clunky and looked as if we were playing in a pre-season friendly. We didn’t disrespect Newcastle but in that first half they did a job on our breakdown.

“On the three occasions we broke away, they were first on the scene to secure possession and they were better than us.

“We were inconsistent and didn’t execute correctly at key moments.

“I have no explanation as to why we started so badly and I have 20 different things in my mind as to why we weren’t able to score in the final minutes.”

Newcastle took an early lead thanks to a brilliant individual try from Radwan. The twicecapped England wing received the ball on halfway, close to the left touchline, before running around two defenders and then out-pacing the cover defence to score in the corner.

Shortly afterwards, Falcons shocked the hosts by scoring again. Captain Michael Young broke away from a line-out on halfway and when the ball was recycled, Chick was on hand to crash over with a second conversion from Connon giving Newcastle a 14-0 lead.

Gloucester, their game littered by uncustomary handling errors, even bungled their forte, a driving line-out 10 metres from the line - so it came as no surprise when Newcastle extended their lead with a penalty from Connon.

The miserable half continued when Mcguigan finished off a driving line-out but Gloucester responded with a try from Seabrook.

Gloucester trailed 24-7 at half-time with front-rowers Jack Singleton and Ciaran Knight introduced.

The first 15 minutes of the second half were scoreless until Mcguigan and Sean Robinson were yellow-carded in quick succession for collapsing driving mauls and Gloucester replacement Jordan finished off a succession of forward drives.

Despite being down to 13, Falcons remarkably won a penalty for Connon to kick before Mcguigan became the first to return from the sin-bin.

Robinson returned but Newcastle continued to offend, with Chick and Tom Penny yellow-carded in quick succession and the hosts awarded a penalty try for Penny’s infraction.

Gloucester had eight minutes against 13 men to score the winning try but somehow Newcastle frustrated them to secure a notable victory.