Pau beat Gloucester to finish top
It was a frustrating match for Gloucester as Johan Ackermann tasted his first home defeat this season.
It looked promising as Jeremy Thrush gave Gloucester the lead after 15 minutes. However, the hosts were pegged back five minutes before the interval after Colin Slade slotted over a penalty.
Pau No.8 Steffon Armitage then took advantage of a poor Gloucester line-out to score the visitors' first try of the match, giving the away side a six-point lead at half-time.
Centre Billy Twelvetrees kicked Gloucester back into contention at the start of the second half but tries from Frank Halai and Lourens Adriaanse extinguished any hope of a comeback from the home side.
Callum Braley and Jake Polledri scored consolation tries either side of a clever score from Daniel Ramsay who benefited from a wonderful dummy by Slade to dive over.
Pau have now clinched a home quarter-final, while Gloucester must wait for Saturday's results to confirm their quarter-final opponents.
The scorers:
For Gloucester:
Tries: Thrush, Braley, Polledri
Cons: Twelvetrees 3
Pen: Twelvetrees
For Pau:
Tries: Armitage, Halai, Adriaanse, Ramsay
Cons: Slade 4
Pens: Slade 2
Gloucester: 15 Jason Woodward, 14 Henry Purdy, 13 Billy Twelvetrees, 12 Andy Symons, 11 Ollie Thorley, 10 Billy Burns, 9 Ben Vellacott, 8 Ben Morgan, 7 Lewis Ludlow, 6 Ross Moriarty, 5 Jeremy Thrush, 4 Tom Savage, 3 John Afoa, 2 Richard Hibbard, 1 Josh Hohneck
Replacements: 16 Motu Matu’u, 17 Cameron Orr, 18 Fraser Balmain, 19 Ed Slater, 20 Freddie Clarke, 21 Jake Polledri, 22 Callum Braley, 23 Owen Williams
Pau: 15 Charly Malie, 14 Frank Halai, 13 Conrad Smith, 12 Jale Vatubua, 11 Watisoni Votu, 10 Colin Slade, 9 Thibault Daubagna, 8 Steffon Armitage, 7 Sean Dougall, 6 Ben Mowen, 5 Daniel Ramsay, 4 Fabrice Metz, 3 Lourens Adriaanse, 2 Laurent Bouchet, 1 Thomas Domingo
Replacements: 16 Lucas Rey, 17 Ignacio Calles, 18 Malik Hamadache, 19 Masalosalo Tutaia, 20 Peter Saili, 21 Clovis Lebail, 22 Antoine Hastoy, 23 Florian Nicot
Referee: John Lacey (Ireland)
Assistant referees: Stuart Gaffikin (Ireland), Paul Haycock (Ireland)
TMO: Olly Hodges (Ireland)
Source: @ERChallengeCup
