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Four-try Ollie Hassell-Collins leaves Gloucester wilting
By Online Editors
Wing Ollie Hassell-Collins scored four tries as London Irish continued their fine run of form with a 24-20 victory over Gloucester.
After excellent victories at Northampton and Harlequins, Irish continued their impressive run to leapfrog Saturday’s visitors in the table and move into the top six.
Stephen Myler converted two with Gloucester responding with tries from Charlie Chapman, Louis Rees-Zammit and Ollie Thorley. Billy Twelvetrees added a penalty and a conversion as the injury-ravaged club crashed to a third league defeat in a row.
In the opening minutes, Danny Cipriani had two kicks charged down to gift Irish an early platform but the hosts failed to capitalise as they chose not to kick a simple penalty. Instead they opted for an attacking scrum but scrum half, Nick Phillips, was robbed of possession for Gloucester to breakaway and win a penalty which Twelvetrees kicked for a tenth minute lead.
The home side’s response was swift with first Franco van der Merwe being held up over the line before Phipps and Stephen Myler neatly combined to provide Hassell-Collins with an easy run-in. Minutes later, Hassell-Collins scored a second. Terence Hepetema and Albert Tuisue did the hard work before the wing brushed off a weak tackle from Chapman to force his way over in the corner.
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Myler again missed the conversion so Irish held a 10-3 advantage at the end of the first quarter with a penalty miss from Twelvetrees being only the notable event of a featureless period up to the interval.
Within three minutes of the restart, Hassell-Collins completed his hat-trick. Gloucester looked threatening in the Irish 22 but a lobbed pass from Twelvetrees was intercepted by the wing, who easily out-paced the cover defence to score.
Seven minutes later Gloucester scored their first try when, from a scrum close to the opposition line, the visitors’ pack drove forward to give Chapman the chance to sidestep a defender to score. That try was the impetus Gloucester needed and they soon scored a second. From another close range scrum, Cipriani showed sublime skills to draw in two defenders and allow Thorley to squeeze over in the corner.
Gloucester looked favourites for victory at that stage but their move broke down for Irish to capitalise and with swift handling created a fourth for Hassell-Collins. The visitors immediately replaced Cipriani with Lloyd Evans and they set up a tense finish when Rees-Zammit crossed with eight minutes remaining but Irish had just enough to hang on.
- Press Association
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Latest Comments
Nah, that just needs some more variation. Chip kicks, grubber stabs, all those. Will Jordan showed a pretty good reason why the rush was bad for his link up with BB.
If you have an overlap on a rush defense, they naturally cover out and out and leave a huge gap near the ruck.
It also helps if both teams play the same rules. ARs set the offside line 1m past where the last mans feet were😅
Go to commentsYeah nar, should work for sure. I was just asking why would you do it that way?
It could be achieved by outsourcing all your IP and players to New Zealand, Japan, and America, with a big Super competition between those countries raking it in with all of Australia's best talent to help them at a club level. When there is enough of a following and players coming through internally, and from other international countries (starting out like Australia/without a pro scene), for these high profile clubs to compete without a heavy australian base, then RA could use all the money they'd saved over the decades to turn things around at home and fund 4 super sides of their own that would be good enough to compete.
That sounds like a great model to reset the game in Aus. Take a couple of decades to invest in youth and community networks before trying to become professional again. I just suggest most aussies would be a bit more optimistic they can make it work without the two decades without any pro club rugby bit.
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