Gloucester completed their second victory over west country rivals Bristol,
securing a try-scoring bonus point in the process taking another step towards a
place in the semi-finals of the Powergen Cup.
The visitors, who had already won 41-9 in the Premiership at the Memorial
Stadium earlier in the season, took an early lead after stealing the ball at a
Bristol line-out 20 metres out.
Hooker Olivier Azam took it at the back and drove towards the line. A quick
ball from the breakdown saw scrum half Haydn Thomas feed his half back partner
Ludovic Mercier.
The fly-half sold a simple dummy before off-loading to flanker Peter Buxton to
power over the line.
Mercier, who had earlier been wide with a 30-metre drop goal, added the
conversion but Bristol hit back straight away with a 20-metre penalty from
fly-half Jason Strange.
Both hookers were having problems finding their own players in the line-outs,
let alone their target man in the opening quarter.
Midway through the half Mercier added a penalty only to be cancelled out a
couple of minutes later by one from Strange.
The former Wales A fly-half was wide of the posts with his third attempt but
Mercier had no such worries at the other end, first with a penalty and then the
conversion of a try from left wing James Simpson-Daniel as he twisted his body
to touch down having chased Mercier's grubber kick through.
Gloucester started the second half strongly, opting to kick penalties to touch
with the aim of gaining a bonus point from four tries.
From one such move, second row Mark Cornwell picked up a loose ball that had
popped out of a driving maul to score the visitors' third try, again converted
by Mercier.
The visitors' bonus point came from a move started from a Bristol attack that
broke down from lack of support.
From the turnover, Gloucester had a five-man overlap and Simpson-Daniel
shrugged off tackles from scrum half Jacob Rauluni and wing David Lemi to score
his second try with Mercier adding the extras.
Bristol applied the pressure in the closing minutes of the game with Samoan
international Lemi and replacement full back Vaughan Going both coming close to
scoring in the left corner but Gloucester's defence stood firm
E-mail Article 
Print-Friendly
Subscribe to RSS Feed 
Post to del.icio.us
Facebook