Gloucester too much for Northampton

Gloucesters unbeaten start to the season continued today with a fairly comfortable win over a disappointing Northampton side. I was looking forward to see Northampton today, I like there attack style of rugby but they were fairly anonymous today and never really got going. Carlos Spence had a poor game, and apart from a few glimpses of his genius never looked like the king. However Gloucester didn't get off to the best of starts.

The lineout was appalling in the first half, I think Olly only hit his target three times. This spoiled many good attacking platforms Gloucester had built, and a number of kicks to the corner were wasted as a consequence. Having squandered this a number of times, Ludo slotted a penalty around 12 minutes in to put Gloucester in front. Northampton soon struck back though, from a move which started with them winning a scrum against the head on the half way line. From a resulting lineout Northampton secured the ball, a quick kick in behind from Spencer saw the simplest of tries from Quinlan who merely had to gather the ball and touch down.

It wasn't long before Gloucester bounced back however, finally lineout ball was secured by Forrester, before he stepped into midfield, received the ball from ludo, broke a tackle and with the fullback nowhere in sight sprinted in from around 25 meters. Jango has been on fire this season, his new bulk and work ethic have made him one of the form players this season and it must now be all but impossible for England to ignore him, if there serious about change. Not long after Tupai was given his marching orders for a ten minute cooling off period. Despite the man advantage the scores stayed level at half time.

Mefin was brought on at the start of the second half and immediately made an impact, the lineout began to function and Northamptons began to crumble, Eustace and Bortolami took control and Gloucester this half were able to build upon this platform. Pete Richards arrival also fired up the side more and made for a tougher battle round the fringes. Again although not a fan of his pass (which in fairness is improving) Richards is on top of his game and we must surely loose him during the international period. Two Ludo penalties extended the led, before Gloucester scored a try reminicent of the old school days.

From a lineout, Gloucester secured the ball and set up a maul about 25 meters out, and well simply put there was no stopping it. The saints defence fell too pieces and Hazell emerged clutching the ball, to take the five pointer. Gloucester's tails were up now, and nearly scored from the restart when Bortolami fed Mefin to tear down the pitch, but unfortunately his pass couldn't find Richards. Not long after Myring was cared for prevent Richards taking a quick tap. The final score of the day came right at the death, Adams, a replacement for the impressive Kiel, chased after his own kick and when Cohen flapped at it had the simplest of scores.

Whilst not the most dominating of performances, we can have little to complain about. We go into the premiership break unbeaten with a lot of first team players still out injured, and on appearances, may have a hell of a fight to get there places back. And the defence today resembled a brick wall, With Bailey, Allen, Foster, Hazell and Keil in particular impressive. If we continue to play this way, we will be fighting for silverware come the end of the season.

Russell Brookes27/9/06