Gloucester-Hartpury: Head coach hails 'special' Premier 15s title win
- Published
Gloucester-Hartpury's win over Exeter made them Premier 15s champions for the first time
Gloucester-Hartpury head coach Sean Lynn says the club is at the "start of something special" after winning their first Premier 15s title.
The Cherry and Whites scored five tries as they beat Exeter Chiefs 34-19 on Saturday to be crowned champions.
The Gloucestershire club had already finished top of the league table before the play-offs began.
A record crowd of 9,668 people watched the game at the club's stadium, renamed Queensholm for the week.
"I just hope everybody enjoyed it, what a great day. Please, please come back next season because this is the start of something special with this squad," Lynn told BBC Radio Gloucestershire.
"It's very special and to win the league and then have the final here at Kingsholm it's something special. i just can't explain how amazing it was to have that Gloucester crowd and you just raised us every time so thank you for everyone."
Gloucester-Hartpury took the lead through Kelsey Jones' try inside five minutes and were never behind from that point, despite having number eight Sarah Beckett sin-binned early in the first half.
Tries from Rachel Lund and Sarah Beckett stretched the advantage to 17-7 at the break before the team were awarded a penalty try midway through the second-half.
Lisa Neumann's score with six minutes to go sealed the title.
Gloucester-Hartpury 34-19 Exeter Chiefs: Cherry and Whites win Premier 15s for first time
"The big moment for me was the 10 minute sin bin that we had first half, the crowd got us through it and that's something which the girls are so grateful for. Defensive efforts were amazing," Lynn continued.
"But the good thing for me was going into that red zone, we converted much better than [against] Bristol Bears.
"All the chat at half-time and we've been looking at it all week, is that Exeter will come out in that 40-60 minute mark and that's where they'll score most of their points so we knew that we had to really focus and dig deep on that and we did.
"The pressure we just kept pounding on them and they just made error after error and we capitalised on it. The bench that came on and the impact that they made was outstanding."
'A long time coming'
Prior to this season, Gloucester-Hartpury had never finished higher than fourth in the table - they were sixth last season - and had only ever reached the play-offs once in the six years since the league was created.
Their win ends the stranglehold Saracens and Harlequins had on the league, with the two London clubs having won every final between them.
Wales international Jones also praised the support from the crowd inside Queensholm - a new record for the Premier 15s.
"The support we got here today, nearly 10,000 supporters, even the Chiefs and who came in force. What a spectators game to be able to watch," she said.
"I'm just super over the moon for everyone.
"That's been such a long time coming and I think this year, something's just clicked for us and look what we've achieved."