Premiership: Gloucester 32-6 Newcastle Falcons

Gloucester eased to their seventh Premiership win of the season

Gloucester ran in four tries to earn a comfortable bonus-point win over Newcastle Falcons at Kingsholm.

Tries from Bill Meakes, James Hook and Ross Moriarty coupled with Hook's accuracy with the boot gave the Cherry and Whites a 25-6 half-time lead.

A scrappy second half saw little more than a couple of confrontations between both sides, before Gloucester's Tom Savage crossed the whitewash.

Gloucester are now just three points behind fourth-placed Northampton.

Newcastle went into the match on the back of consecutive home victories over Leicester and Northampton, but a lacklustre display before the break ensured the match was over by half-time.

Relive Gloucester's win over Newcastle here

Gloucester, however, looked buoyed by last weekend's 25-12 loss at leaders Saracens and came flying out of the blocks, despite losing Jacob Rowan to a first-minute head injury.

Australian wing Meakes collected Willi Heinz's pinpoint grubber kick to open the scoring before instrumental Wales international Hook wriggled through to add a second try shortly after.

Flanker Moriarty then dived over following some quick hands from Heinz and Mariano Galarza just before the half-time whistle.

As the game turned niggly after the break, neither side was able to string any attacking momentum together until replacement lock Savage crashed over.

Newcastle's only saving grace from a disappointing afternoon was Worcester's 38-18 defeat at Northampton, which saw them stay two points ahead of Warriors in 10th and seven points clear of bottom side London Irish.

Gloucester director of rugby David Humphreys told BBC Radio Gloucestershire:

"In the same way that we reacted very positively immediately after the Leicester defeat, we got the same reaction today - I thought the players were outstanding.

"I thought the last 10 minutes were much better, we stayed patient, subs came on and made a difference, made a real impact.

"There's a sense of relief more than anything else I think after that game because we played so well that we felt we just deserved the bonus point.

Gloucester: Cook; Sharples, Meakes, Twelvetrees (capt), Purdy; Hook, Heinz; McAllister, Hibbard, Afoa, Thrush, Galarza, Moriarty, Rowan, Ludlow.

Replacements: Dawidiuk, Thomas, Doran-Jones, Savage, Kvesic, Braley, Burns, Trinder.

Newcastle: Hammersley; Venditti, Harris, Powell, Watson; Willis, Takulua; Vickers, Lawson, Vea, Green, Wilson, Mayhew, Welch (capt), Hogg.

Replacements: McGuigan, Rogers, Hatakeyama, Botha, Clever, Young, Sinoti, Socino.