Gloucester hold off fightback
Worcester Warriors remain winless in the Premiership after a second-half fightback fell short in a 24-19 derby victory for Gloucester.
Though the visitors did claim a losing bonus point for their efforts, they could not avoid a fourth consecutive defeat after narrowly failing to overturn a 24-6 deficit.
Gloucester took a 10-0 lead through Billy Burns' penalty and Ollie Thorley's first try, which saw him latch on to an excellent offload by Jason Woodward, with both of those scores coming when Donncha O'Callaghan was in the sin bin.
Thorley flew down the left wing to add his second following a 22-metre restart from Worcester, with Burns' conversion making it 17-0.
A pair of Ryan Mills penalties got Worcester on the board before half-time, but just a minute into the second period Gloucester went over again with a try-of-the-season contender.
Half-time replacement Henry Trinder surged through the Worcester defence from his own 22 before exchanging passes with Will Heinz and offloading for Billy Twelvetrees to go underneath the posts.
Mills' cross-field kick was collected by Perry Humphreys for Worcester's first try on the hour mark as they looked to mount an impressive comeback.
Humphreys' second, the result of a break from Ben Te'o, and a further three-pointer from Mills provided further grounds for hope, but Gloucester survived despite some late pressure to join four other teams on nine points.
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It’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.
Go to commentsDon’t pay a blind bit of notice to Lukie… he likes the sound of his own voice and is always looking for something controversial to say. He has been banging on about Leinster's defensive system all season like he knows something Jacques Nienebar doesn’t. Which is the reason why he didn’t apply for the job obviously
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