By Ridley Hall
May 18 2002

This was the trouncing we half expected but the 60-9 scoreline was made even harder to bear by the fact that Bristol won at Tigers. All of a sudden that Heineken Cup qualification looks decidely dodgy. Still if we play like this it might be a blessing in disguise.

We competed for the first 13 minutes and were the better side despite going behind to a Mercier penalty on six minutes.

But then Paramore stopped a Wilkinson break by grabbing hold of the boy wonder's shirt collar and, as his velocity spun him round, he twisted an ankle. Not a malacious tackle but it sent JW limping off to hospital for an x-ray.

A very rusty Dave Walder stepped up to fly half with Both going to 15 and Gareth MacLure coming onto the wing.

Our pattern went and Glaws stepped up the power to blow us away for the next 70 minutes. Heads went down, tackles were missed or half hearted and even Phil Vickery managed a 30 metre burst down the left wing [Gloucester's favourite tactic] to shrug off pathetic attempts by MacLure and Botham to sidestep his way over.

The good natured and friendly locals found another chant to latch onto - "Are You Watching Rob Andrew?"

Well he was but the question Falcons fans want to ask is "What are you going to do about it Rob Andrew?"

He fielded all of his departees at one time or another and Weir, Graham, Armstrong and Lam did not deserve to leave with such a hammering.

True we were missing Ward, Dunbar and Mower and neither Walder nor May looked fit. We saw Springgay come on in the second row and Richardson in the backs, but it only added to the men against boys. Surely he must have some powerful forwards lined up for next season?

For the record Glaws played some superb rugby with Simpson-Daniel showing his class throughout the game, setting up one superb try for Tom Beim just before half time, cutting inside then unleashing Beim with a reverse pass to flatfoot our defence.

By then we were 15-6 down and, when Junior Paramore added the fourth try before the break, the game was over as a contest at 29-6.

Falcons came back out fighting for a bit of pride and another shaky Walder pen made it 29-9. Glaws then opened up with O'Leary getting a huge benefit of the doubt from referee Steve Lander when he claimed he had forced his way over and then a string of perfectly good tries from "flying winger" Vickery, Mercier, Paul and Fanuloa.

Our closest attempt came on 70 minutes when Noon broke through the middle and, with Paul rooted to the spot, dallied long enough for a hulking forward to catch him five metres from the line. That summed it all up. Put your money on Glaws to win the play-off.