Premiership Rugby: Leicester 28-13 Gloucester: Anthony Watson scores twice in Tigers victory
- Published
Anthony Watson scored his first tries in the Premiership since October
Gallagher Premiership |
|---|
Leicester: (6) 28 |
Tries: Porter, Watson 2 Cons: Burns 2 Pens: Burns 3 |
Gloucester: (8) 13 |
Tries: Tuisue, May Pens: Hastings |
Richard Wigglesworth won his first match as interim head coach at Leicester as they beat Gloucester 28-8.
An Adam Hastings penalty was bettered by two from Freddie Burns to give Leicester the lead, before Albert Tuisue's try edged Gloucester ahead.
Guy Porter and an Anthony Watson double swung the lead definitively the Tigers' way in the second half, before Jonny May scored a late consolation.
The victory meant the Tigers lifted the inaugural Slater Cup.
And it also saw Leicester - with Wigglesworth now in charge after Steve Borthwick left to become England head coach - overtake the Cherry and Whites in the Premiership table by two points and move up to fourth.
George Skivington made wholesale changes for Gloucester after coming in for criticism for resting the majority of his first-choice team in the Champions Cup thrashing by Leinster last week, with only Tuisue remaining in the starting XV.
It was the Fijian who made an early impact, winning a turnover inside two minutes and then crossing the try line, only to be held up.
Hastings put Gloucester's first points on the board, with the only downside for the visitors in a dominant opening 10 minutes being the loss of Wales winger Louis Rees-Zammit, who hobbled off with an ankle injury six weeks before the start of the Six Nations.
The loss of Louis Rees-Zammit with an injured left ankle was an early setback for Gloucester
Burns retaliated with two penalties of his own to edge Leicester in front, but in a cagey half, Dan Kelly had a try scrubbed off for the Tigers.
Jack Van Poortvliet had darted through a gap in the Gloucester defence and offloaded to Kelly to run over, only for the officials to rule that Dan Coles held Tuisue's ankle in the build-up, allowing the initial space to open.
With the clock in red at the end of the half, Tuisue made Leicester pay and stretched over to score from a driving maul.
Porter instantly put Leicester back in front after the break, darting around the Gloucester line on the wing and then running between two defenders to cross the line.
It proved a hugely physical match with limited chances at either end before Watson capitalised as Leicester turned up the pressure, darting inside from close range to stretch the lead to 15 points.
The winger dived over in the corner for his second nine minutes later and while May ran in for his first try of the season, it was too little too late for Gloucester.
The first Slater Cup
Ed Slater was at Welford Road to present the first Slater Cup
Former Gloucester and Leicester lock Slater, 34, was diagnosed with motor neurone disease in June and was in the stand at Welford Road to watch the match with his family.
He presented Leicester captain Hanro Liebenberg with the trophy, which will be contested across each Premiership match between the two sides.
Five per cent of the price of each ticket went towards the 4ED Foundation, a campaign set up by Slater in the wake of his diagnosis, which aims to raise money towards his treatment and wider awareness of MND.
Leicester Tigers interim head coach Richard Wigglesworth:
"I am learning as I go along and I intend to put everything into it.
"It was a huge kicking battle in the first half which was pretty even, but we became dominant in the tackle and ruck area which gave us field position.
"Our discipline improved as we didn't give away one penalty in the first 30 minutes of the second half.
"We made some errors and were scratchy at times but hopefully we will show more cohesion in the weeks ahead."
Gloucester head coach George Skivington told BBC Radio Gloucestershire:
"I think that's a pretty humbling second half to be honest. We lost our two best strike runners that we had on the pitch [Louis Rees-Zammit and Santiago Carreras] and I don't think we adapted well enough in the second half.
"We probably tried to continue playing the way we set out to play so I've got to take accountability for that, probably at half-time we needed to be a but tighter with the plan and again that's on me.
"But I think second half Leicester comprehensively beat us in most areas of the play."
Leicester: Steward, Watson, Porter, Kelly, Potter, Burns, Van Poortvliet; Whitcombe, Clare, Cole, Wells, Chessum, Liebenberg (c), Refell, Cracknell.
Replacements: Oghre, Leatigaga, Heyes, Green, Jansen, Youngs, Atkinson, Ashton.
Gloucester: Carreras, Rees-Zammit, Harris, Atkinson, May, Hastings, Varney; Rapava-Ruskin, Socino, Gotovtsev, Clarke, Alemanno, Ackermann, Ludlow (c), Tuisue.
Replacements: McGuigan, Seville, Knight, Craig, Morgan, Chapman, Kveseladze, Evans.
Referee: Christophe Ridley