Our eighth defeat in ten games against the Cherry and Whites came as a hairy-looking defence was beaten first-up again and again as Gloucester won this Premiership meeting 27-20.

We shaded the start of the game despite Gloucester having the first real chance in the left hand corner, and eventually we took the lead when Cory Harris broke through on the 22, held off a defender and ran in a try that captain Jonny Wilkinson converted.  The home side hit straight back though through James Forrester, who did so much damage on our last trip to Kingsholm, whose simple try went unconverted but Ludovic Mercier’s penalty gave Gloucester an 8-7 lead at half time against 14 men after we had Robbie Morris sin-binned (despite the penalty count surely having been  much in our favour).

We went further behind as Mercier scored three more penalties for a ten-point advantage, but in a second half dominated by Gloucester we still had chances to score and Wilkinson kept us in the hunt with a snap try under the posts, which he converted himself.  The hope didn’t last long however, as Peter Richards scored Gloucester’s second try soon after coming off the bench and Mercier and Wilkinson’s exchanged penalties wrapped up the scoring.  We kept trying to attack, but couldn’t manage to get past the halfway line with ball in hand.  So it was that Gloucester claimed the four points.

The Premiership table shows us still in eleventh place, and although apart from Bristol we haven’t played dreadfully for a whole match this season, the fact is we have one win, one draw and four defeats from six games.  If Leeds put a few wins together (which they are certainly capable of doing) and results for us and other lower sides don’t improve, then we will find ourselves in the middle of another relegation dogfight, which cannot be allowed to happen.  Friday night’s game at home is a must-win if we are to get any sort of Premiership form going.

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