Late Anscombe penalty fires Blues to Challenge Cup glory
CARDIFF Blues gave departing coach Danny Wilson the silverware his sterling efforts deserved in this pulsating Challenge Cup Final that was so much more than an hors d’ouvre before the main event.
The Blues staged a mighty second half comeback after trailing 20-6 at half-time, having scarcely fired a shot in anger in the opening 40 minutes, and finally sealed the deal with a nerveless last minute penalty from wide out by Gareth Anscombe.
It was a stunning comeback – the biggest ever in a Challenge Cup Final – and it was also a gala occasion in a magnificent stadium that can only increase the kudos of Europe’s secondary competition. But it should also be added, in the interests of fairness and posterity, that Gloucester suffered badly with a number of hotly disputed decisions. Controversy hung in the air.
Jerome Garces is one of the world’s best refs but he seemed unusually hurried and on edge, perhaps because for some reason he was communicating with his other officials almost exclusively in French. Usually he does his talking and communicating in English which slows the thought process down a little and allows some reflection.
He got it wrong in the first half when he denied Gloucester one of the tries of the year by immediately calling a forward pass from Josh Hohneck to Lewis Ludlow which was in fact the off-load of the season and which the roof-cam quickly showed to go at least two feet backwards. Only Garces could say why he didn’t hold off blowing for the extra two to three seconds it took for Ludlow to trot in and score before referring it to the TMO.
Then in the second half, with the Cardiff comeback well under way it was a desperately close call when Garyn Smith scored after chasing onto Jarrod Evans kick. Gloucester fans will say he was a foot in front, Cardiff level, but what is beyond question is that it needed the TMO to have a look – it’s the whole raison d’etre of the TMO system.
Finally a textbook turnover – knees and elbows off the ground, supporting his own bodyweight – from the outstanding Jake Polledri in front of his posts when his team were under the pump was mystifyingly pinged with Cardiff gratefully banging over the three points.
Gloucester have shown this season that they are well capable of clutching defeat from the jaws of victory and they certainly lost the plot a little here but they will be understandably sore at some of the decisions.
But that’s the nature of Cup rugby, the decisions sometimes don’t even themselves out over 80 minutes like they do over a long league season, and nothing should detract from the fact that Cardiff staged a remarkable comeback and that Gloucester took their foot off the peddle.
An epic game built slowly in the first quarter with only a brilliantly taken try by Henry Trinder out on the wing, collecting a clever, low teasing kick from Billy Burns offering an inkling of the excitement to come.
Twelvetrees converted and added a penalty with Cardiff chipping away with two penalties before the action began to hot up.
First Gloucester had Ludlow’s try inexplicably disallowed but they recovered from that disappointment to swoop for another wonderfully worked try before half-time with Billy Twelvetrees, that man Trinder and Callum Braley combining down the left to send Mark Atkinson in for a cracking score.
Twelvetrees converted and added a penalty on the stroke of half-time and frankly Gloucester seemed one score away from closing out the game.
To make matters worse, flanker Josh Navidi was forced off with his arm in a sling – making him a doubt for Wales’ summer tour – and wing Owen Lane followed him with a similar looking shoulder injury.
But Cardiff were a different beast after the break and immediately got into Gloucester’s always fragile mindset by scoring within a minute with Williams chasing Anscombe’s clever kick ahead and then doing wonderfully well to dob down after his own chip through bounced back off the posts.
It would have been a penalty try anyway because Braley tried to hold him back and in fact the Gloucester scrum-half was lucky not to cop a yellow.
Suddenly it was game on and it was all getting very fraught in the Gloucester camp. Cardiff rammed home the advantage with their second try, also the product of intelligent kicking; this time Evans’ neat little through ball of a grubber popping up nicely for Smith – Lane’s replacement – to touch down a try which should have gone to the TMO. Nothing seemed to be going Gloucester’s way and they were losing all composure.
Just once they used their heads, kicked for the corner and trundled Hanson over in textbook fashion to regain the lead. Twelvetrees kicked another penalty and another burst of controlled rugby and Gloucester would have been back in control but that, at this stage of their development, seems beyond Gloucester.
Cardiff came roaring back with a sharply taken diving try by Scully – for some reason referred to the TMO when it was clearly a legitimate score – but still Cardiff trailed by two points until Anscombe stepped forward to land the vital match winning penalty. Cue Cardiff joy and Gloucester despair.