Dominant second half sees Gloucester ease past Castres in Challenge Cup
Gloucester made it four wins from four in EPCR Challenge Cup Pool Three with a comprehensive 35-5 victory over Castres at Kingsholm.
The Cherry and Whites had already qualified for the round of 16 but ran in four tries to secure a bonus-point win.
Seb Atkinson went over for an eighth-minute score converted by Adam Hastings, who added a penalty as the hosts went into the break 10-5 up, Josaia Raisuqe going over for the French outfit.
But it was one-way traffic after the interval with tries from Freddie Clarke, Hastings and Albert Tuisue ensuring a comfortable night’s work for Gloucester.
Hastings finished with 15 points from a try, two conversions and two penalties, while Santiago Carreras added a late conversion and penalty.
Edinburgh ran in five tries as they moved to the brink of qualification from the pool with a 31-19 win over Scarlets at Parc y Scarlets.
Ben Vellacott and WP Nel both went over in the first six minutes as the Scots raced into a 14-0 lead.
Joe Roberts crossed to get Scarlets back into it but further Edinburgh scores from Duhan Van Der Merwe and Hamish Watson had the bonus point secured by half-time.
Pierre Schoeman put the game to bed three minutes after the restart and – after Edinburgh lock Grant Gilchrist was shown a red card in the 72nd minute – Ryan Conbeer and a penalty try gave some respectability to the score for the home side, who have lost all four games to exit the competition.
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Some interesting stats that just proved what my first impression of NZ’s drive to speed up Rugby Union would amount to - fine margins here and there to cut a few seconds off the game and nothing else. To do more there would have to be wholesale changes to the game like doing away with scrums, lineouts and bringing back the ELV’s to have free kicks instead of penalties. Very little chance of it happening but, in the end, Ruby Union would be a 15-man version of Rugby League. There are reasons why Rugby Union is globally more popular that Rugby League and what NZ are also not considering is the unintended consequences of what they want to achieve. This will end up turning Rugby Union into a low value product that will not be acceptable to the paying public. If people really wanted a sped-up version of rugby, then why is Rugby Union globally way more popular than Rugby League? Rugby lovers all over the world are also not stupid and have seen through what NZ are trying to achieve here, selfishly to bring back their glory days of dominance over every other nation and compete with Rugby League that is dominant in Australasia. NH countries just don’t have the cattle, or the fantastic weather needed to play like NZ SR franchises do so good luck to whoever has to try and convince the NH to accept going back to the days of NZ dominance and agreeing to wreck the game in the process. I have serious doubts on the validity of the TV stats presented by GP. All they did was expand the broadcasting base by putting it on free to air, not even any indication of arresting the continued drop in viewership. Match day attendance goes hand in hand with broadcast ratings so if there was an increase in the one you should expect to see it with the other. However, the drop in match day attendance is very evident to the casual highlights package viewer. The only club who looks to be getting solid attendance is the Drua. I am calling it now that NZ’s quest to speed up the game will fail and so will the vote on the 20-minute red card.
Go to commentsIt’s a good, timely wake up call for NZ Rugby (seem to be a few of them lately!) - sort out the bureaucratic nonsense at board level. We can’t expect to stay the number one option without keeping fans/players engaged. We’ve obviously been bleeding players to league for years but can’t let the floodgates open (although I think this headline is hyperbolic as it’s a result of a recent Warriors pathways system where they are tracking things more closely) Understand the need to focus boys on rugby if they’re at a proud rugby school too, don’t think it’s harsh at all re Barakat in Hamilton. Reward the committed players with squad positions. An elite 1st XV system in NZ has done more for league than they even realise, think it’s good to protect our game further.
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