Good times are rolling again at Gloucester
AFTER a number of years in the doldrums, the good times are rapidly returning to Kingsholm.
Their last league outing saw Gloucester win at Saracens for the first time in nine attempts and here their faithful supporters were treated to some thrilling rugby as their heroes qualified for the last 16.
Gloucester’s convincing win wasn’t unexpected as Perpignan, lying 11th in the French Top 14, had only one player named in the national squad for the forthcoming Six Nations and made 11 changes from the starting line-up in their last league appearance.
At the heart of Gloucester’s effort was their captain, Lewis Ludlow, who was mysteriously overlooked for England’s Six Nations squad.
Despite their excellent
statistics this season, he and fellow forwards, Jack Singleton, Ruan Ackermann and Freddie Clarke, were all omitted and remarkably Bath, who have won one game all season, would have had three forwards in the squad had Sam Underhill been fit, with rampant Gloucester having none.
Gloucester’s head coach, George Skivington, said: “I’m surprised none of our forwards were included and some players were
clearly disappointed.
“They are obviously on the fringe and I believe doors will open for them if they keep battling away.
“The boys were clinical tonight as we linked well to play some good attacking rugby against a massive pack.”
With a much-changed side, Perpignan were never likely to get anything from this match but it is to their credit that they turned up on a weekend which saw a number of teams withdraw from their fixtures.
They looked set to make a fight of it when they exerted early pressure and could have further tested the hosts had their fly-half, Matteo Rodor, not put in two weak kicks.
Rodor then compounded his errors by telegraphing a pass which Ludlow intercepted to run over 60 metres to score.
The try unsettled the French and they soon conceded a second when Louis
Rees-Zammit sailed through to provide Kyle Moyle with an easy run-in.
Back came Perpignan with a driving line-out for Seilala Lam to power over.
However Gloucester soon scored a third when Ludlow supported a break from Chris Harris to send Jordy Reid in under the posts.
The fifth try of a blistering opening 25 minutes went the way of the French when another close-range drive resulted in a score for Nino Seguela.
It was now Gloucester’s turn to demonstrate their forte with a 5m line-out drive creating the bonuspoint try for Santiago Socino.
The game was sealed by half-time when Mark Atkinson cruised past some weak tackling to score, with five conversions from Adam Hastings giving his side a 35-12 interval lead.
After the restart, Perpignan continued to rack up the penalties and it came as no surprise when Arthur Joly was sin-binned for repeated team offences.
The response was swift with a second try for Reid but Perpignan showed some resistance when they broke out of defence for Seguela to race over for his second.
Stephen Varney was next over for the line for Gloucester before a plethora of substitutions brought a lull of a scoreless 15 minutes.
However Singleton’s try took his side past 50 with late efforts from Harris and Rees-Zammit allowing them to join Atkinson on the score-sheet.
Ahead of joining up with their national squads, all three had impressive games to reward the industry of their pack in which Ludlow and two-try Reid were the stand-out figures.