Gloucester on the move

Gloucester moved up three places, to seventh, in the Guinness Premiership standings with a hard-earned 12-9 win over Leicester Tigers at Kingsholm on Friday.

It was the boot of flyhalf Freddie Burns, who landed two drop-goals and two penalties, that edged Jeremy Staunton’s three penalties.

Burns came into the side after the late withdrawal of Nicky Robinson.

The losing bonus point ensured Tigers held on to fourth place for at least another 24 hours.

Tigers’ new recruit, discarded Wallaby wing Lote Tuqiri, had an opportunity to win the match for his team. However, he knocked on in the final move of the match – with the tryline at his mercy – to hand Gloucester their first Guinness Premiership home win since beating Bath on the opening day of the season.

It wasn’t a feast of running rugby. In fact, it was like a Gloucester victory of old – conditions far from perfect and with the pack putting in a herculean up front to lay the platform for victory.

Burns will make the headlines and rightly so but, on the night, every single man wearing the Cherry and White shirt ran until his blood turned to water for the cause.

In a season where wins have been hard to come by recently, it genuinely looked as though this one would slip away again.

For all the jubilation at the final whistle, the evening started with a sense of foreboding as Gloucester were forced to reshuffle even before the game had kicked off.

A quick look through the match programme revealed that Gloucester were missing 14 internationals coming into the game either due to injury, international call ups or suspension.

Incredibly, that became 17 by the time the game kicked off with Nicky Robinson (groin) and James Simpson-Daniel (dead leg) failing late fitness tests and Olly Morgan pulling out during the warm up.

Staunton opened the scoring in the 12th minute, before two Burns penalties – in the 16th and 20th minutes – gave Gloucester a lead they would never concede.

There was a Staunton miss, before Burns landed the first of his two drop-goals in the 31st minute.

Two minutes later Staunton made it 9-6, which was also the half-time score.

In the 42nd minute Burns kicked his second drop, with Staunton making it a three-point game in the 46th minute – which was the final scoring act of the game.

The scorers:

For Gloucester:
Pens: Burns 2
DGs: Burns 2

For Leicester Tigers:
Pens: Staunton 3

Yellow card: Scott Hamilton (Leicester Tigers, 71)

The teams:

Gloucester Rugby: 15 Charlie Sharples, 14 Tom Voyce, 13 Henry Trinder, 12 Tim Molenaar, 11 Lesley Vainikolo, 10 Freddie Burns, 9 Dave Lewis, 8 Gareth Delve, 7 Jake Boer, 6 Peter Buxton, 5 Dave Attwood, 4 Will James, 3 Greg Somerville, 2 Darren Dawiduik, 1 Nick Wood.
Replacements: 16 Ben Phillips, 17 Paul Doran-Jones, 18 Pierre Capdevielle, 19 Adam Eustace, 20 Nathan Thomas, 21 Jordi Pasqualin, 22 Carlos Spencer, 23 Jonny May.

Leicester Tigers: 15 Scott Hamilton, 14 Lote Tuqiri, 13 Anthony Allen, 12 Aaron Mauger, 11 Johne Murphy, 10 Jeremy Staunton, 9 Ben Youngs, 8 Jordan Crane, 7 Ben Pienaar, 6 Brett Deacon, 5 Ben Kay, 4 Geoff Parling, 3 Dan Cole, 2 Mefin Davies, 1 Boris Stankovich.
Replacements: 16 George Chuter, 17 Robbie Harris, 18 Jonny Harris, 19 Calum Green, 20 Dan Hemingway, 21 James Grindal, 22 Toby Flood, 23 Matt Smith.

Referee: Sean Davey