Rarely, if ever, has a Premiership season kicked off at such a cracking pace under the Friday night lights. If this is a glorious indication of what is to come then everyone will be richly entertained, although Gloucester will not be thinking that way for several days. As their director of rugby David Humphreys made clear afterwards, no professional team holding a 31-7 lead at home should end up on the losing side.
Even Leicester appeared braced for a heavy defeat until Gloucester, having removed their tight forwards from the fray with the game seemingly won, fatally slackened their grip. The Tigers, for whom Lachlan McCaffrey was a tireless presence, tied things up with a 77th-minute try from Brendon O’Connor and then sealed victory in the final minute via a close-range driven maul finished off by Sam Harrison, his second try of a topsy-turvy night.
It was an extraordinary start to a season marking the 125th anniversary of rugby at Kingsholm but that will be nil consolation to Humphreys and his players, despite their stunning first-half display. “The bottom line is it’s not acceptable to be winning 31-7 at home and lose the game,” said Humphreys. “Everything we did well in the first half we did badly in the second half. There have to be pretty fundamental reasons for what went wrong in the second half.”
It would be easy to point the finger at the decision to kick for the corner when leading 31-24 with five minutes left rather than inviting James Hook to take a long-range shot at goal. But Humphreys, rightly, was more upset by the fatal failure to claim the resultant lineout. It gave Leicester just enough time to secure a win that stunned even their director of rugby, Richard Cockerill. “Credit to the players for getting out of a great big hole they’d dug for themselves,” he said.
The Cherry and White inquest, even so, should not be entirely gloomy. Their first 45 minutes were as slick and impressive as any since Humphreys took over, their determination to play with more tempo and ambition thrillingly evident. The Scotland centre Matt Scott scored two smart tries and the skipper Greig Laidlaw kicked 11 points. What had been billed as “Burns night” – the brothers Freddie and Billy Burns were the starting fly-halves – ended up with a real Caledonian tinge.
If the pre-match omens had been a slight concern for Gloucester – they had scored only one win in their previous seven games against Leicester – there was no sign of it. A neat inside ball from Billy Twelvetrees sent John Afoa charging towards the try-line and only a shuddering tackle by Tom Youngs prevented Tom Savage from scoring the season’s opening try. It was merely a temporary reprieve for the Tigers, as another sweeping move down the left involving Matt Kvesic and Twelvetrees resulted in a try for Scott on his first league appearance since arriving from Edinburgh.
His compatriot Laidlaw duly added the conversion and, when the restart from Freddie Burns sailed straight out on the full, it reflected the Tigers’ early befuddlement. They badly needed a restoring pick-me-up, which duly materialised when Burns’ angled grubber found JP Pietersen and the Springbok wing coolly popped up a scoring pass for a grateful Manu Tuilagi, who later limped off with a sore calf.
It seemed only a temporary blip as Charlie Sharples intercepted a looping pass from Mathew Tait and raced 60 metres to restore his side’s seven-point cushion. Even Wayne Barnes was swiftly forgiven for a couple of debatable early calls; a penalty against Tait for holding on after an attempted quick throw had backfired yielding a further three points for Laidlaw. The entertainment was far from over, Twelvetrees cleverly evaded a charging Tuilagi and launched another surge down the right. Ross Moriarty threw a stunning left-handed offload out of a tackle and the lurking Scott touched down for a second time. The scoreboard read 24-7; for Leicester there had been no rest.
When Peter Betham coughed up turnover ball to Hook and the youthful Henry Purdy left the cover for dead to ensure a try bonus point it really should have been all over. Instead the coffin lid creaked open thanks to a try from Pietersen before a yellow card for Kvesic, a penalty from Burns and Harrison’s first close-range score dragged the visitors back to within seven points. The rest was a Cherry and White nightmare, in total contrast to their dreamy start.
Gloucester Marshall; Sharples (Heinz, 71), Scott,
Twelvetrees, Purdy; B Burns (Hook, h-t), Laidlaw (capt); Thomas
(McAllister, 48), Hibbard (Dawiduik, 48), Afoa (Doran-Jones, 48)
Savage, Galarza, Moriarty, Kvesic (Rowan, 65), Morgan (Evans, 57) Tries: Scott 2, Sharples, Purdy. Cons: Laidlaw 4. Pen: Laidlaw. Sin-bin: Kvesic 55.
Leicester Tait; Veainu (Thompstone, 48), Betham, Tuilagi
(Smith, 72), Pietersen; F Burns (B Youngs; 67), Harrison; Ayerza
(Genge, 48), T Youngs (capt; McGuigan, 60), Bateman (Cole, 48),
Slater, Barrow (Kitchener, 60) Hamilton (Evans, 72), O’Connor,
McCaffrey.
Tries: Tuilagi, Pietersen, Harrison 2, O’Connor. Cons: F Burns 3, Harrison 2. Pen: F Burns.
Referee W Barnes Att: 14,298
