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A FLYING START by Gloucester, when they scored ten points in the opening few minutes, set the home side well on their way to a convincing win over a disappointing Newcastle side.
The Cherry and Whites never looked back and had 24 points on the board before the visitors got a look in.
Early in the season Gloucester had been well and truly turned over, 42-22, at Kingston Park, arguably one of their poorest displays of this season.
This performance has gone some of the way to eradicating that memory and there are now signs that at last Gloucester may be running into something like the kind of form that was such a feature of last season.
Performances in the Heineken Cup, plus the return of key players to the ranks does seem to have boosted confidence if the Newcastle match is anything to go on.
POOR OPPOSITION
Newcastle provided poor opposition, and on the day looked to be in a lower class and were comprehensively outplayed in all departments as Gloucester gained a welcome all important bonus point
Gloucester’s dream start in the opening few minutes came after an attempted Newcastle clearance kick was charged down and Robert Todd was on hand to get the crucial first try.
Star man Henry Paul’s recent fine vein of form continued as he added the conversion.
H.P. added a penalty to put Gloucester firmly in the driving seat after barely ten minutes play.
Gloucester may have been without leading try scorer James Simpson-Daniel because of a rib injury but in Marcel Garvey there is another speedster on the other wing with an appetite and aptitude for getting tries.
Marcel ran in from close to the halfway, going round the opposition cover with deceptive ease for a scintillating score.
ONE WAY TRAFFIC
H.P again did the honours with the conversion and it was almost all one-way traffic in Newcastle territory.
Toddy and MacRae combined well following more Gloucester pressure, for the Australian to get the second try and again H.P. added the extra points. 24-0 to the home side.
The visitors did manage to get on the scoreboard just before the interval, profiting from a knock-on that went unnoticed by the match officials, before the petulant Tom May scored under the posts.
24-5 at the break was a fair reflection of the one sided state of play. Any thoughts of a visitor’s revival were short-lived and their heads dropped when replacement No. 8 James Forrester crossed for the bonus point try.
Some of the Newcastle tactics were downright cynical and dubious as it became increasingly obvious that scrum half Andy Gomarsall was a marked man and was singled out for special ‘off the ball’ treatment.
Nevertheless he had another good game and must have impressed the watching Clive Woodward, with Six Nations thoughts on his mind.
The ever-popular Terry Fanolua got the biggest cheer of the afternoon as usual, when a typical determined run put the icing on the cake with a fifth try.
Newcastle did get something of a consolation when they scored a an injury time try but by then they were destined to be second best by some margin, long before the end.
ON FORM PAUL
On form H.P. had yet another strong game in the centre and I wonder if he has at last found favour with Sir Clive?
A welcome win for Gloucester with the important bonus point try and this keeps them well in contention for next season’s Heineken Cup competition and possibly the Zurich play-offs this season.
Gloucester are playing better rugby than at any other time this season.
Let’s hope they can keep it going during and after the Six Nations period.
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Five
try Gloucester find their form