Gloucester held on to claim a 24-19 victory over Worcester Warriors in an entertaining clash at Kingsholm on Friday evening.
Two well-taken tries from Ollie Thorley and one from Billy Twelvetrees helped the home side to secure the win.
The Warriors got off to the worst possible start after captain Donncha O’Callaghan was yellow-carded after six minutes for a cynical foul on defence close to his try-line.
Gloucester took control soon afterwards, starting with a Billy Burns penalty.
Burns set up the next try when he delivered a fantastic flat pass to Jason Woodward, whose offload released Thorley to score. The Gloucester winger doubled his tally moment later.
This, after Twelvetrees caused problems for the Warriors defenders with a superb line break before passing to Thorley, who scored his second to make it 17-0 after just 18 minutes.
Two Ryan Mills penalties reduced the deficit before half-time and gave Worcester a glimmer of hope with the score at 17-6 at the interval.
Henry Trinder’s introduction had an almost immediate impact for Gloucester as he made a telling run before slick interplay between him and skipper Willie Heinz resulted in Twelvetrees receiving an offload before scoring, taking the score to 24-6.
Warriors winger Perry Humphreys gave his side a glimmer of hope, soon after, beating Charlie Sharples in the air from a Ryan Mills cross-kick to score. Humphreys scored a second try in the 72nd minute to give the home side something to worry about.
Mills did slot a third penalty to earn Warriors a losing bonus point and although the visitors finished stronger, Gloucester held on for the win.
The scorers:
For Gloucester:
Tries: Thorley 2, Twelvetrees
Cons: Burns 3
Pen: Burns
For Worcester Warriors:
Tries: Humphreys 2
Pens: Mills 3
Gloucester: 15 Jason Woodward, 14 Charlie Sharples, 13 Billy Twelvetrees, 12 Mark Atkinson, 11 Ollie Thorley 10 Billy Burns, 9 Willi Heinz (c), 8 Ruan Ackermann, 7 Jacob Rowan, 6 Freddie Clarke, 5 Jeremy Thrush, 4 Ed Slater, 3 John Afoa, 2 Motu Matu’u, 1 Val Rapava Ruskin
Replacements: 16 Richard Hibbard, 17 Josh Hohneck, 18 Gareth Denman, 19 Tom Savage, 20 Lewis Ludlow, 21 Ben Vellacott, 22 Henry Trinder, 23 David Halaifonua
Worcester: 15 Josh Adams, 14 Perry Humphreys, 13 Jackson Willison, 12 Ben Te’o, 11 Bryce Heem, 10 Ryan Mills, 9 Peter Stringer, 8 GJ van Velze, 7 Sam Lewis, 6 Alafoti Faosiliva, 5 Pierce Phillips, 4 Donncha O’Callaghan (c), 3 Biyi Alo, 2 Jack Singleton, 1 Ryan Bower
Replacements: 16 Joe Taufete’e, 17 Ethan Waller, 18 Gareth Milasinovich, 19 Christian Scotland-Williamson, 20 David Denton, 21 Jono Kitto, 22 Dean Hammond, 23 Jamie Shillcock
Referee: Wayne Barnes
Assistant Referees: Adam Leal, Peter Allan
TMO: Rowan Kitt
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