| Leicester: (8) 25 |
| Tries: Reffell, Kata, Wiese, Shillcock; Pens: Shillcock; Cons: Shillcock. |
| Gloucester: (17) 27 |
| Tries: Mercer, Harris, Varney; Pens: Carreras 2; Cons: Carreras 3. |
Stephen Varney scored a late attempt to assist Gloucester snatch a surprising first Premiership win at Leicester Tigers for greater than 16 years.
Zach Mercer and Chris Harris tries helped put Gloucester 17-8 up at half-time, with Tommy Reffell hitting again with Tigers’ strive simply earlier than the break.
Additional scores from Solomone Kata, Jasper Wiese and Jamie Shillcock edged Tigers forward late on.
Varney’s successful strive, nonetheless, stopped Tigers from transferring as much as second.
A bonus-point victory would have catapulted Tigers up the desk forward of the remaining weekend fixtures, however defeat noticed them slip a spot to seventh with 5 regular-season video games left after Bristol beat leaders Northampton within the different Friday night time sport.
For second-from-bottom Gloucester, it was a exceptional second victory in seven days in opposition to Tigers, after beating the East Midlands membership within the Premiership Rugby Cup closing.
It additionally earned them a second piece of silverware, as they received the Slater Cup – named after ex-Tigers and Gloucester captain Ed Slater, who was recognized with motor neurone illness in 2022 – for the primary time.
The previous lock was at Mattioli Woods Welford Highway together with his household, and it was his kids who introduced the cup onto the sphere earlier than the match to a thunderous ovation.
Van Poortvliet returns for much-changed Tigers
Tigers made numerous adjustments to the facet crushed by the Cherry and Whites per week earlier, with England internationals Ollie Chessum, Dan Cole and Freddie Steward, in addition to Wales’ Reffell all coming into the facet after the Six Nations.
There was additionally a eagerly anticipated return to motion for England scrum-half Jack van Poortvliet after an eight-month harm lay-off.
Leicester, nonetheless, have been additionally compelled to make a late change with two-time World-Cup successful fly-half Handre Pollard dominated out by way of sickness.
Shillcock got here in for the South African and booted the primary factors of the sport after a tense opening 22 minutes.
Mercer, the Gloucester quantity eight who mentioned he was “completed” with the England crew after being ignored for the Six Nations, then sparked the Cherry and Whites to life after powering over the road to complete an exquisite transfer instigated by Seb Blake.
Santiago Carreras added the extras, then landed a penalty, earlier than alternative centre Harris burst by way of a spot so as to add a second Gloucester attempt to stun the hosts.
Reffell crashed over for Leicester’s response from a rolling maul within the closing seconds of the primary half, and the second interval began with Kata doing the identical to chop the hole to 4 factors.
And after Carreras landed a second Gloucester penalty, Wiese’s strive for Leicester gave the hosts the prospect to stage after 56 minutes, however Shillcock may solely hit the put up together with his conversion.
Shillcock finally went on to edge Tigers forward with a strive, however his failure to once more land the extras proved pricey.
Whereas Leicester managed to carry Gloucester up over the road within the closing minutes, one other devastating break by Blake and offload to Varney for the late strive left it to Carreras to win it with a conversion.
‘We want a tough look within the mirror’ – response
Leicester Tigers head coach Dan McKellar advised BBC Radio Leicester:
“They [players] are extremely dissatisfied, everyone seems to be – we do not like shedding at house and that’s the actuality.
“The core of our sport is round our defence and set-piece. The set-piece, I believed, was glorious however defensively it was disappointing.
“We are attempting to develop and evolve different areas of our sport, however I do not suppose that damage us essentially tonight, it is simply they performed nicely they usually took their probabilities.
“They have been that little extra determined, which is why we have to have a very good onerous look within the mirror.”
Gloucester head coach George Skivington advised BBC Radio Gloucestershire:
“We would have liked that Slater Cup. We now have performed 4 of these fixtures now and we have been determined to get our fingers on it.
“The boys, like final week, had them below a number of stress within the first half. We have been just a little bit inaccurate and compelled our hand with a number of offloads, and Leicester are superb at pouncing on these crumbs.
“We most likely stored them within the sport just a little bit.
“I believed the boys, within the second half, have been courageous they usually backed themselves. When issues go flawed they get again on observe and I believe, general, we deserved that tonight.”
Leicester Tigers: Steward; Bassett, Kelly, Kata, Hassell-Collins; Shillcock, B Youngs; Cronin, Montoya, Cole; Wells, O Chessum, Liebenberg, Reffell, Wiese.
Replacements: Theobald-Thomas, Whitcombe, Heyes, Hatherell, Cracknell, Van Poortvliet, Wilkinson, Cokanasiga.
Gloucester: Evans; Could, Llewellyn, S Atkinson, Hathaway; Carreras, S Varney; Vivas, Blake, Gotovtsev’ Clarke, Jordan, Ackermann, Clement, Mercer.
Replacements: McBurney, Elrington, Ford-Robinson, Clark, Thomas, Tuisue, Chapman, Harris.
Referee: Matthew Carley.